In praise of freshwater nerite snails

[succinctfish]

I got a bunch of nerite snails from zapisto at aquanourriplus (thanks Zap!), courtesy also of Beowulf as he brought them back to Ottawa.  What can I say, but I love these little algae munching cuties.  I have an anubias in my tank that was beginning to get rather covered in algae, the bumblebee nerites climbed on board and are systematically cleaning each leaf.  Hooray!  They are getting a bit of help from the otocinclis as well.  Nothing like a good clean up crew in the tank. The plants I put in the tank seem to have brought in all kinds of algae, which is not so good for me, but tasty for the snails.  Here are a couple of photos of one of the nerites, the bumblebee ones were camera shy today, all you get is a bottom view of one of those. The fish on the right are my corydoras robinea, so cute.

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[zapisto]

Nice to see they are doing great

[babblefish1960]

They really are great fun to watch, okay they don't move around very quickly, but they are still very nice looking, and busy at work, munching away on all manner of algae and such.

[RoxyDog]

snails rock!   

[beowulf]

snails rock!   

Snails are snacks for my fish 

[succinctfish]

Snails are snacks for my fish 

it's a good thing you didn't take your fish on an outing to Montreal then isn't it?
I'm sure they would have gotten peckish on the way back.   

Snails are not snacks(except for pond snails, death to pond snails!)
Snails are our friends 
I love my snails. Yes, I have become a bona fide snail weirdo.   

[beowulf]

Don't get my wrong I find some of the snails pretty cool looking but in the end my two largest tanks at the moment (65 and 30g) both have loaches in them.  Clowns in the 65 and khulis and kubotai in the other so snails are.....kind of out of the question.

[babblefish1960]

Well, well, wulfie, a closet snail weirdo, you'll just have to have a tank some day without those silly loaches and invest in your inner snail weirdo.

[RoxyDog]

I have kubotai loaches and nerite snails together.  No problems yet...

[beowulf]

I have kubotai loaches and nerite snails together.  No problems yet...

There not the best for eating snails but they will if they can.

[Laura]

I keep khulis and another pangio sp. with applesnails.  Although I've heard stories about khulis eating snails, mine have never looked twice at them.  My weather loach also displayed no interest, but again, I've heard reports they're not snail-safe. 
I'm surprised Roxy's kubotais haven't had a snail snack though, I tend to think all of the botia shaped loaches as not really snail safe.  Maybe nerites aren't tasty?

[babblefish1960]

I would suggest that roxydog is getting away with it momentarily as her nerites are currently larger than her kubotai loach, hard to say what will happen in time.

[saseniukk]

Hi there gang.  I've started a little snail tank for my daughters. Are there any local shops (from Belleville to Ottawa) that have decent and interesting snails?  P.s.  I find that as long as loaches are well fed they leave the snails alone, once they get hungry though....

[succinctfish]

Welcome to OVAS, saseniukk!  I got my wonderful nerite snails from www.aquanourriplus.com, one of the sponsors here.  Zap ships, so wherever you are, you could order snails and get them sent to you.  Check out his website to see some pics.  Superpet in Kanata had some interesting snails as well, you could check with them. 

[RoxyDog]

we'll see...nerites tend to stay in their shells a lot, nothing poking out to be munched on.  at least that's what they do in an african tank.    I'll keep my eyes peeled, but my kubotais are well fed.

[babblefish1960]

Poor little nerites having to live with evil Africans, if they keep them from getting a good foot out, they don't get to eat, and every good snail weirdo knows that a fine snail such as your nerite is worth waaay more than a colony of crazy africans any day. And loaches, well, they're just a food fish frenetically searching for snails so that they taste good themselves on the dinner plate.

[beowulf]

And loaches, well, they're just a food fish frenetically searching for snails so that they taste good themselves on the dinner plate.

[RoxyDog]

Art had a clown loach who never touched his snails.  Guess you never know?

And my nerites are just fine.  You can see their little mouths just a munching away on the glass. 

[PaleoFishGirl]

Art's snails all somehow died anyway though...

3 cheers for snail weirdos

[beowulf]

I'll stick to getting some marine snails for my nano!!!