Any suggestion on algae eating snail/fish in my shrimp tank?

[obduty01]

Hi all,

As per topic, I'm looking to add some snail/otto into mine 1 feet shrimp tank. Hopefully it could solve my algae problem. What kind of snail/otto should i be looking? Any suggestion.....

Cheers!

[wongce]

snail:- nerites
Oto:- normal one will do...

[qool]

Can you describe what algae problem you are trying to fix? If it is green dust algae and diatom adding nertile and otto will help. If it is others you need to let us know.

[bennyc]

Yamato is able to handle more algae type. You might want to reconsider.

[wongce]

Solve the root problem is more effective... can share what kind of algae you encounter?

[FabianLee]

In my opinion of algae crews

Yamato - Superb algae cleaning machine, but they tend to get way bigger in size, they also will snatch those pellets or food from your shrimps occasionally.
Nerite Snail - Very good for green spot algae, they will leave a "clear line" if your tank glass is filled with it
Otos - Very good till they are used to commercial food available in the tank, they tend to get lazy, for me they are like super crazy machines in 3 or more, but once they get a taste of commercial food, they slow down.

Like what wongce has stated, find out the root of the problem(Too much light? Direct sunlight shining on tank? Too much nutrients, too little plants? etc), the most important algae cleaning crew is user himself/herself, the rest are just little cute assistant to help you when you are really busy to maintain the tank , in the long run if the root is not solved the algae will win the battle.

[citvengen]

Hi Obduty01, I have a 1 feet shrimp tank in office, initially facing this problem until trial and error thingy. Found out I was too greedy to have the light on for too long (15hrs to at time 24 hrs) cause my tank was quite planted, scared they will die off.
Then decided to change it to 12hrs daily and with controlled amount of pellets given, also with help of my 3 hardworking Ramshorn snails, 2 cute leopard Ottos and community shrimps, tank with algae slowly cleared off

[bennyc]

12 hours daily seems to be too long too. Long time is possible provided nutrients and enough CO2 to compliment it.

[siatc]

i always have 2 or 3 Nerite Snail in my tank. They work hard to help me to fix the algae problem

[obduty01]

I see. Thank for all the feedback. I guess i have to cut short the light on from 12 hours to 8 and add few snails to solve the algae issues.

[milk_vanilla]

Nerite is good, but they leave lotsa white eggs everywhere. Is there any other snail variant who's doing the same job, but difficult / almost impossible to breed in typical aquarium water tank?

I honestly do not like snail, but might consider if useful and manageable.

[FabianLee]

I didn't like snails initially too, but found those big zebra Nerite snail to be cute and kind of effective after some time, even those snails that hitchhike with plants prove to be useful, they move like Turbo(The movie).