For those of you keeping nerite snails, how do you keep them alive?
Bought 7 of them in the past 2 weeks, all are dead.
I have a Co2 injected tank planted tank, below are the specs:
CO2 at 1bps
Excel dosing once per week.
Excel flourish twice a week.
Potassium Sulphate once a week.
Seachem iron and Phosphorous once every 2 days.
The last batch of 5 horned nerites i bought were acclimatised for 1.5 hours or so, and when added to the tank, were moving all over my glass. Went to sleep and next morning, the snails were all on the substrate and trap door was closed. That was on Sunday. They haven't moved for days and when i checked today, they were obviously dead.
This is getting pretty frustrating trying to keep them alive!
Nowadays whenever i get any new nerite snails, i just place them at the edge of the tank water surface, let them attach to the glass and then leave them to climb down into the tank when they are ready. Seems to work well.
Whats the pH of your tank? If its really low and there is low mineral content, the nerite snails may not fare well in it for long. Very low acidic pH conditions tend to corrode their shells and eventually kill them. They also need to be in a fully cycled tank, ammonia or nitrite spikes will also kill them.
So far i've managed to keep nerite snails long term in tanks with pH of 6.5 and above, but thats along with shrimp mineral rock to supply them additional calcium and vitamins (its mainly for the shrimps but benefits the snails too), and with relatively low-moderate Co2 injection (pH drops to 6.0, or at most just slightly below). They are able to live but the shells still look abit eroded and worn out though.
I find that the nerite snails i keep in neutral or higher pH water are much more active, grow faster and develop shiny strong shells.
I actually don't have a ph tester, but given that it's Ada substrate with co2 injection, I would figure that ph is pretty low.
With just 2 rocks and mostly Dutch style of planting without any driftwood, guessing the water can get pretty hard too. Will grab a ph tester after CNY and try again. Ammonia has been 0 for the longest time though, added a couple of livestock in the past month and all have no issues. Vibrant colors, active and growing well.
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After dosing Phosphates to try and get rid of GSA, I'm getting this algae instead. Anyone has any idea what this is? Is it green dust algae?
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Seem like the green spot algae. You have to scrub it in order to get rid of it. ITSA brand got one scrubber with blade that will not scratch your fish tank.
Looks like ke the common green film algae, easy to remove and usually eaten up by otocinclus or snails... though the areas at the bottom of the tank between the plants do tend to be abit difficult for most algae eaters to reach, so you'll just have to use an algae scraper to finish off the cleaning work during regular tank maintenance.
That's one of the things with increasing certain nutrients to counter specific algaes, it's a delicate balance as there is a constant competition between various algae species in the tank, when one algae species is surpressed, if there are still excess light or nutrients, chances are other algae species will take over and dominate instead.
There is also some visible hair/thread algae amongst the plants too, i guess you just have to continue adjusting the ratio between plant requirements, lights, Co2 and nutrients to get the best balance. Dosing some anti-algae treatment (ie. AlgExit) can help make things abit easier to manage too.
Realized today that the green film algae is decreasing. Not sure if they are disappearing like brown diatoms or the Otos are clearing it. I will finish up the rest with a sponge when doing my weekly WC.
My tank was actually fairly balanced with little algae. But two weeks back, i decided to start running with 2 LED lights, mainly as the carpeting was not complete and i began to lose patience. With 2 lights in place, can see tremendous pearling from the hairgrass and other plants, and tons of new runners in the substrate. Will wait a bit and then revert to running just one led light.
You have insanely sharp eyes UA! I didn't ask about the hair/thread algae earlier as i have dealt with them before and know what they are. Last time round i manually removed them and added SAE to help with it. This time round, might try Algexit once the LFS opens.
I'm beginning to suspect that instead of green film algae, what I have is BGA instead.
Scrubbed the tank yesterday and the algae came off in one whole piece, and curls around into small filament like particles and some wrapped around my hair grass.
One of my Oto which has been extremely stable for past 6months looks like he's dying. Might have somehow been affected by the BGA.
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Can try dosing Blue Exit (the alternative to AlgExit), its designed to combat BGA, and also inhibits other types of algae too so can be a sort of general treatment.
Hmm, last time I facing green spot algae on my tank. Ever since I install chiller and maintain my temperature at 24-25 degree. Seem like now min algae?
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