Coldwater Cleaner

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Demonshark, snails don't eat poop. If they were doing it, they were trying to gobble the undigested foods making up the portion of the poop as some fish excrete undigested foods. I have not kept the pumpkinseed myself yet so I cannot really verify if these do eat snails. If possible though, add more plants for the snails to hide effectively. What is your tank temperature?

If you opt to go with Viviparus malleatus, please make sure you supplement it with extra algae because vivs, in my experience, are the most difficult to feed. They prefer dead and decaying plant parts and algae. You could give them dead oak leaves or Indian almond leaves whichever is available for them. In tanks where water quality deteriorates, where temperature is quite high (above 74 degrees Fahrenheit), these snails will withdraw in their shells and stay there for weeks until the conditions go back in their favor. These are, to be honest, the most boring snails I ever had. I placed mine in my ponds instead of my tanks as I had difficulty feeding them and are a waste of space with their shy nature although thankfully, they've started breeding in my pond since two months ago. Vivs are livebearers. Find out here on how to determine their sexes.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158651

You could also attempt the apple snails. Your best bet would be mystery snails (Pomacea diffusa) as the rest of the apple snails available in the trade, are voracious plant eaters particularly the Marisa cornuarietis, Asolene spixi, Pomacea canaliculata and Pomacea insularum. All apple snails are not effective algae eaters even though they include algae as part of their diet so do not expect too much from your apple snails to eliminate the algae for you. I feed my own apple snails the additional green hair algae aside from snail jello, plaster of Paris pucks, commercial foods, celery sticks, cucumber slices, calcium tablets and many others. Mystery snails need to be supplemented with those particularly foods rich in calcium. More information can be found here.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1725725&postcount=8


The last option would be ramshorns (Planorbis sp.). These are however very prolific breeders although if you are controlling your food supply, their population is easily placed under control. You could always squish the extras for your fish to eat as added protein in their diet. Ramshorns eat algae and food leftovers proficiently. They are also available in various colors from the ordinary brown to striking blue. Here is a detailed layout of how to keep the number of snails in check.
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215160

 
Do you have algea growing on things or free floating (green water) If it's free floating you could try freshwater clams...

Pumpkinseeds will eat snails if they can fit them in their mouths. They are one of their natural food sources.
 
nothing under 2 inches for your normaly sized pumpkinseed. THEY WILL EAT EVERYTHING! had problems with them and plecos and loaches. personally i would get a garra garra i have one in with my 20 long bass tank in with a baby LMB and 2 small Rock's
 
Just get a magnetic scrubber and a gravel vac. Pumpkinseeds are called "shellcrackers" for a reason, and there are no effective algae-cleaning fish in coldwater except perhaps some of the hillstream loaches, which would almost certainly be harrassed or eaten by the sunfish.
 
yeah, maintain the tank and stop algae instead of trying to remove it.

ps. its redear sunfish that are called shellcrackers, not pumpkinseeds ;) but pumpkinseeds will demolish snails, i put a bunch of snails in my tank from the creek and they were gone in under an hour. it was fun to hear a random crunch coming from the tank every few minutes.
 
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