Which Snail is BEST at Removing Algae. 

We love our nerite snail, Twinkle. He has been amazing at keeping our tank algae free, and our female betta, Night Sky, leaves him alone. :)

Lol I have 2 nerites and one would leave the filter. He kept moving but he just kept exploring the filter. I later named him Phil (filter-fil-Phil). I couldn’t think of a name for the other one so I call him “not Phil”

I recently got nerites for the first time and I’m in love. I will never have a tank without them again, they are such good workers.

My betta loves his nirites, sometimes when they're at the top of the tank he'll rest on a floating plant right next to them like they're cuddling almost. I think the snails are his fav because they move slow and are chill like him.

Forget the snails, I am in love with your voice! Very pleasant to the ear, and very comprehensive to the heart! 👌

I created a snail food / "snello" for my Nerites that 2 out of 3 actually like and will eat like little piggies! It's made from organic Spirulina Powder, organic Agar Powder and powdered calcium carbonate. When I first got my Nerite snails I had almost no algae in my tank and didn't realize that they wouldn't eat other foods. Out of desperation I created an organic, veggie snello that they actually LOVED and wolfed down in a matter of a couple of hours! It was a huge relief because they hadn't eaten for about a week and I was worried they would starve to death! I keep extra snello on hand in my freezer in case I ever need to transfer them to a new tank that doesn't have algae yet and I still give it to them from time to time to make sure they get enough calcium for their shells. BTW... they seem to eat the snello best when it's smeared onto a piece of driftwood or rock in the tank.

that coconut house so adorable 4:13

At least your little pea puffers won’t go hungry when you have a breeding colony of rams horn snails 🐌

Between the cherry shrimp and the nerites I added, they destroyed a huge hair algae bloom in less than a week. Incredible.

Totally agree! I absolutely love nerites. They're cute, they don't have population explosions, and they are so good at keeping the algae in check. I never thought I'd like snails as much as I do but after the first tiger nerite I got (I named her Zoomy), I can't imagine a tank without one. I now have three horned nerites that I rotate through my various tanks as needed. That purple mystery snail is very lovely though!

This video helped convince me to get two nerites tomorrow. I'm having an algae problem on my walls and this helped answer my question. Thanks so much!

I’ve got a ton of nerite snails in my tanks. I love them. 😝

I had never seen algae on my tanks' walls until I had a Mystery Snail only tank. They do eat and poop like crazy: their snello, algae wafers, blanched veggies, my plants (big time), but they are definitely above munching on glass algae. The other tanks (with nerites in) were always spotless.

My 5 gallon was covered. I had a mystery snail, a black devil, a pond snail, and a dozen MTS for a month with no change. I added one nerite and it was almost entirely gone in about 4 days.

I'm totally into snails too! and the winner of the experiment is the nerites! I have a few questions but I'll just have to research them. thanks for the video.

I have two 33 Gallon tanks and I bought 2 nerite snails for each, 1 red and one yellow/black horned and 1 yellow black/zebra and another yellow/black horned and put them in my tanks. One tank had a coconut hut that was completely green on top and in 3 days was back to spotless brown. Great algae eaters, one tank had a fake plant with algae on it and the others are eating that, cleaning up leafs every day.

I'm gonna get a nerite this weekend. Thanks for the video.

I'm glad you do highlighting about WASTE !! 🙂

I love nerve snails alot

My Nerite snails are sluggish and one has a crack in in shell. Something that I notice between the two species is you can see the Mystery snail out and about while the shell of the Nerite you are lucky to catch them on the go and you never even see pneumostome , breathing tube. My substrate is lightly planted and is made of peatmoss and sand. They can spend all day just sitting in it without movement. I really do enjoy the progress of both. Thank you for sharing the video. 😁

Just great. I bought 3 Mystery snails yesterday and now I found this video. Looks like I made a big mistake.

Holy crap thank you. Finally some decent science on RU-vid!

I love my nerite snails. I have a tiger and zebra. I’ve only had them for 2 months.

The Nerite snails are much better in eating algae in any aquarium! 🌷🌿

The panda corys kept distracting me lmao especially when I noticed one who swam above middle of the tank-- it surprised me hahaha

Would be interested to see a larger experiment with more species, including pest species and newer rarer species. Apple/mystery, blueberry, nerite, ramshorn, dwarf ramshorn, bladder, pond, trumpet, and of course the inexplicably hated freshwater limpet.

Thank you! Hopefully, my LFS has some Nerites in stock tomorrow 🙏

The small species of snails which hitchhike with plants are the very best at getting your tank looking brand new in a very short amount of time. Then as long as you don't overfeed, their population should remain manageable....even rising and falling again as food sources build than deplete. Thats the definition of balance.

Awesome comparison video, This will surely help people get what they need done.

I will say this. I have planted tanks. I keep snails in all of them. I have rams, Malaysians, a wild type of rams horn, another type of snails am from the wild as well. They are only in 2 of my tanks. They a adorable and do a great job in my shrimp tank. I keep neurites snails as well, and also mystery snails. Not one tank has all of these in them. I have 20 active tanks and they all different snails that suit tge needs of the tank. I also keep scuds as well. They came from a friend on some plants he gave me. They have worked wonders in some of my planted tanks. They do a good job along with Malaysian snails at turning up the sand so the roots of plants do not get compacted.

I only had 1fish for a few weeks and it got sick and died. Wasn’t sure I did something or the fish was ill when I got it. Never got another one. I’m learning a lot watching these videos. Thank you

The main drawback of Nerites, although they are the best algae eater snails, is the EGGS. It's so hard to ensure you only have male snails, so the eggs will eventually be EVERYWHERE. The females will even produce hundreds of eggs without a male present...

Those big snails need to have advertisements put on their shells and rented out.

This is really informative!!! :)

thanks so much, i got 3 nerites and they really cleaned all in 2/3 days, one moved a rock from the sand o.O that's very strong

RAMSHORN SNAIL GANG!!! I have spot algae (INCREDIBLY HARD TO CLEAN) and my ramshorns just removed it like nothing

My nerite snail is my favourite. i got a couple of mystery snails and didn’t know how big they would get. The mystery snails also mash food around and kinda pigs, their pop is a lot too. The nerite snail is a bit under the radar and it’s poop isn’t very bit at all. The nerite just does it’s thing and keeps things pretty clean. I have soft water and have had to put cuttle bone in the water because the nerite got a bit of a raggy shell. I also like that it stays under it’s shell and I can see it’s little mouth on the glass. A nice, quiet and efficient snail.

Hello Sheila. I hope you and your family are staying positive and well. This video was very informative in selecting Mystery snails or nerite snails to clean the tanks glass with Algae! This will help me to decide which snails to purchase to clean my tanks with algae!

Nerite are not only great at eating algae, they are also great at crawling out of the tank on to the floor. I have a sealed tank now and I am worried about gas exchange.

Awesome experiment, thank you!

I enjoyed watching the video. Thanks for posting. We don't have any Mystery Snails but we have several types of Nerites and they're awesome algae eaters. We have some Bladder Snails and they do very good cleanup work as well.

I have 6 nerite in my pond I'm glad to see that they grow so much.

Nerite snails are kinda cute. Mine love to perch atop the output of a sponge filter. No issues in water quality when checked, but they just loved doing that. Once they've enjoyed enough of a cool breeze, they snail along back into the water.

i have tanks and i clean them every week with scrubs to remove algaes.. but when i both nerite snails.. it has been 2 months no need for scrubings.. even my fish houses are shiny clean.. very thankful to my hardworking nerites

Hate the eggs, but nerites are the way to go. I consider a mystery snail more of decoration.

Actually zebra snail's are good for the walls. But tiger snail's are good for cleaning the plants

Great video thank you

Nerites for the win! Great experiment with good visual results 💕

I made an entire 30 liters Aquarium just for ramshorn snails. I love this adorable little fast breeding things.

All nerites aren't created equal. I have two tiger nerites that barely do anything. I have two horned nerites who are a non-stop glass cleaning crew.

I had 3 mystery snail in an algea infested tank and I kid you not, they cleaned that tank within a week it was crystal clean.

I loved it when she said the snail had a nice stripe then stuck it onto the glass😂💖

Nerites eat a lot of algae because in the sea where they live has high amounts of calcium which the shells absorb.

Thank you so much for this information!!! I have a very large Mystery and will definitely try the other now.

Beautifully colours

Nerite birinci sınıf temizleyici.. Video için teşekkürler 😉

This is a very helpful video hey! really impressed!

Love nerites. I don’t mind the eggs as they’re easy to clean up.

THANK You!

Hello, I've had nerite snails for over a year, mine LOVE green spot algae. I just bought my first mystery snail today hoping it would do as nice of a job. After watching your video, I'm regretting getting it a bit. 😑 I guess it will just be an additional aquatic pet.

I was looking for this topic. Thank you for sharing your research.

My mystery diet is peas, zucchini, beans with added eggshells and cuddle bone, frozen and I add a chunk before she wakes up. My betta likes the peas too.

Escaping...that's also a big thing to think about.. large mystery snails are good at that...my large one got out my larger tank I was lucky to find it...I placed it short term in a 3.5 with a few old male guppies and he seems really happy...he sleeps in a small flower pot...and eats Cory cat food and leafy overs...my nerite snails who are so old now are fine if you leave them space to get out the water...they like to get away from my guppies who feed off the algae on the shells...

I had a zebra nerite snail I my tank and he did.a great at keeping it clean I just didn't like the little white eggs left on my driftwood.

I think mystery’s are the best but I also really like Nerite

Wow what a difference!

My favorite snail for brown algae is the green olive snail.

I have two mystery snails jack and Jill and my betta Blake in a tank and Blake don’t even pay them any attention 😂

My gold mystery snail does fine an his big lil snails are kool too but the bigger one are kooler

Are use a combination of Malaysian trumpet snails because they turn over the substrate really well and keep it clean but they do breed like crazy so beware and the Nerites take care of everything else I found it to be the perfect combination

Bladder snails are also a good option

I had a mystery snail in my betta tank that was very entertaining (who would have thought a snail could be entertaining?), and did a great job at eating the food that fell to the bottom. Unfortunately he died in about 6 months. At first I thought it was the low pH (6.5-6.8) that got him, but now I'm thinking it was diet. I did have a cuttlebone in the tank for calcium, but I never saw him actually eat any of the cuttlebone and it doesn't seem to have dissolved. I'd like to try again with another mystery snail; maybe I have to find another way to get it calcium. One interesting thing was that the mystery snail did move over the glass, but I never noticed algae disappearing as a result.

Thank you

I love mystery snails but my angelfish kept trying to nip his antenna thinking it was a worm so I got narite and they did wonderfully

Nerite snails are the best nails!😊😊😊😊

Nice video, I use Ramshorn Snails and Malaysian Trumpet Snails to keep my tanks clean! I even have a time lapse of them crawling around the plants and glass eating the algae!

I guess I have been lucky cause I have three nerite snails in my 29 gallon and I have never seen white eggs. It's my guppie tank and they do a great job with the algae.

Just tossed some nerrite snails into my tanks, but I have issues with trumpet snails.

Brilliant - very informative - very helpful

You have such a lovely voice

I think your videos are great and very informative!

Thanks for the info and comparison. I need a nerite for algae in a Betta tank, thanks again!

I just got a nerite 3 days ago and as of yesterday and today he’s in his shell and won’t come out… so may him back and get a mystery instead

Agree 100%

Will either of these snails survive in a tank with an 8 inch oscar? Also, will either of them breed if solo in the tank? Thanks

Great videos

zerba snail just like my Timbit and Rubble

Wow. I learned a lot. To bad I have like 5 mistery clutches of eggs.

You should see snails in my fish tank they get big there really cool lioplax sulculosa

Mystery snails reproduce too

Mystery snails eat plants and big pieces of them too.

Zebra nerite snail best !!

can you keep nerites with mystery snails? i already have an adult mystery snail but he’s not too good and algae cleanup

What kind of plants are those

I want more experiment :D.. thz u

I added apple snail today.. It started digging up in the substrate.. It did that in 3 spots within first 10 minutes.. I moved it back to quarantine tank for now.. . Any reason they do that? How to get it to stop? It id ruining the aquascape by digs and uprooting plants..

You should have used a large/ adult size mystery/ Apple snail.

You’re definitely right about the wood, my narrite nails are always cleaning and moving the Cholla wood around. Good luck on trying to Aqua scape with that because wherever you put it they’re going to twist it and roll it and move it. I love your mystery snails, the purple is amazing. When I got my narrates nails they had little white spots on them, my KHNGHR up there enough for guppies and I put a few pieces of crushed coral in the bottom but they don’t seem to play with it, what do you give them to fix that or is that just always going to be white now?

Nerite snails are awesome help! Mystery snails are illegal here 🙈

And the winner is Nerite Snail..