Snails in a piranha tank... a problem? or a solution?

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Greenpiranhas323

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 4, 2010
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South Carolina
I've ALWAYS heard from different fish owners I know that snails are bad for various reasons like they carry parasites etc. I have a 6 red belly piranha tank that gets pretty quick algae build up all over the glass... and my pleco does an absolutely terrible job... he just sits in the same spot on the bottom and steals food from the piranhas.

Can/should I be able to add snails to the mix to help control the algae? Are there drawbacks to doing this?
 
Ive never had a pleco that cleaned anything. mostly they just **** on everything. They love the algea discs, but none of mine would ever clean the glass, and the rhino pleco I had seemed to eat wood.
 
try rubber lip pleco.
my old 75g had its back glass panel almost 100% covered by algae and I dropped in one rubber lip pleco and in couple weeks it cleaned out everything. one of the best algae eater I've had before my rhom decided to make a snack out of it.
 
I have some otocinclus in my planted tank and man they are algae grazing machines. They'd probably get eaten in a P tank though.
 
yea, those are great. I had those in with Ares, you would think a 12" rhom wouldn't bother with such small otocinclus but no...they went disappear on me one by one.
 
my snails dont clean anything, my plecos do a wonderful job, never have problems with algae since I got them
 
How about small clown loaches wearing chain mail.

Snails and algae are generally indicative of overfeeding. Even a small amount of uneaten food can sustain quite a few snails or cause algae blooms.

Try reducing feeding or break it up into multiple small amounts througout the day to insure the fish eat it all at once. Also reduce the lighting duration and/or get a magfloat glass cleaner.
 
Howdy,

I have snails not to remove algae but to clean up shredded fish debris. And they do a great job :thumbsup:

HarleyK
 
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