[niko]

Nice shots, yes!

Some time ago I was wondering what to tell people about the Nerites (temperatures, pH and so on). Luis Navarro told me that whenever his Nerites' shells start to deteriorate he moves them to a cichlid tank for a few weeks. The water in that tank has a lot of Calcium. I guess pH is high too which means that Nerites can live in a variety of pH values.

The temperature; It seems Nerites like it on the warm side, but the temperature can vary a lot too. 72 is definitely too low for them. They don't die, but bunch up together - around the heater as well as in the corners of the tank. At this temperature they laid eggs though. I'm not sure if it was the Red Spot Nerites or the Zebras. On the other hand they can do fine at very high temperature too - I had a heater that didn't work very well and it raised the temperature to 88. From what I saw the Nerites didn't mind.

Bigstick,
What is your opinion on Neritina and algae? Are they as effective as we think they are? My tanks have very low light and zero algae so I don't really know. In any case they have beautiful shells and even if they don't eat algae much better than most other snails I'd still think they are the best looking aquarium snails we have access to so far.

--Nikolay

 

[niko]

Ah, nice to hear that the Red Spotted and the Zebra Neritinas don't make as much of the annoying white eggs! I didn't know that.

We keep the snails on a very strict "diet". Basically we feed them algae wafers but very carefully. Having a few hundred snails in a 40 gallon tank is surely overcrowding and frequent water changes (I try to do 10-20% every day) is a must. So we don't overfeed in order to keep good water quality. I bet when the snails are put in a planted tank they may go for the first available food they see. What I have seen though is that they don't damage Java Moss, which is very fine leaved and Amano shrimp often strips it bare.

Glad to hear that your Nerites left the Anubias alone. I'd say they should have attacked your HC first but go figure, as long as they don't do it any more it's all good.

--Nikolay

 

[niko]

My observation with the Nerites is that they MUST be fed. By that I mean that I keep them in bare botom tanks and I feed the fish very conservatively so I avoid spoiling the water. The Nerites never seem awfully interested or excited about any food (unlike Tylomelania, the Sulawesi Rabbit snails which go berzerk when they smell blood).

If you have a normal tank with substrate and all I do believe the Neritinas will be fine. I have a few in a customer's tank and they always stay visible and active. The tank has a lot of fish and a lot of mulm.

From what I've seen water conditions don't seem to interest the Nerites. But they MUST have moving water. Being a snail you'd assume they can live in just about any water, but that is not so. Stagnant, non-moving water is not to their liking.

--Nikolay