Fish4brains

Well i have had a lot of problems with algae lately and I tried using some mystery snails and ghost shrimp to take care of that but it still has not worked. The shrimp I thought wouldnt work cuz they arent great algae eaters, but they ate a lot of scum off the gravel. Anywayz... the mystery snails ive read about eat a lot of algae. There are these big patches of brown and little dots of green all over the place. Anybody know why these snails arent doing their job?? Thanx.

JanS

In my experience no snails are great algae eaters, even though they may peck at it here and there.

Your best bet would be something like Oto's or shrimp, depending on the size of the tank. The brown blotches sound like diatoms, and it's easily wiped away by hand.

If you have scum on the gravel, you might want to consider vacuuming/cleaning the bottom a little more thoroughly, and feeding a little less.

trenac

Your algae problem is due to a inbalance in the tank and all the algae eaters will not be able to take care of the algae until you get the tank balanced.

Give us your water parameters and tell us about your tank set up and maintance schedule. This way we can help fiqure out what is causing the algae.

From your description it sounds as if you have diatoms & green spot algae. Both can be wiped off if on your glass. Otto's will eat the brown algae.

Ghost shrimp are more scanvengers then algae eaters. I have good success with Ramshorn snail eating algae.

Bert H

The shrimp considered best for algae eating are the amanos and red cherries. If you're interested in learning about shrimp check out www.petshrimp.com, a very informative site.