# which species of freshwater snail can eat hard algae/ hair algae?



## Ras (Nov 7, 2013)

by hard algae I mean spot algae and other green stuff that forms on glass , my otto's cant seem to touch it 
same with the long green hair algae , the otto's dont really like it 
so I am wondering if there is a species of snail who will eat these types of algae w.o eating any new growth from the plants, idc about dead leaves being eaten tho. preferably a snail that will reproduce since I have assassins, but I could move them to a new tank if absolutely necessary 
I know it is easily removed by hand but my tank is heavily planted and I have a lot of floating plants. The less time I spend fumbling around in there the better


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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

nerites will eat at it on the glass but the only thing i know of that will eat hair algae will also take down all the plants in your tank and are illegal to ship across state lines. with that said columbian ramshorn snails are pretty but man do they eat the green stuff. the only thing they didnt eat in my tank was hornwort


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## thelub (Jan 4, 2013)

True SAE eat black hair algae. Only problem is they get rather large full grown.


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## Ras (Nov 7, 2013)

any other cure for hair algae? this type of stuff 








maybe raising or lowering a certain fert or amount of light? I was thiinking pleco's might like it, since they seem to eat just about anything else, or maybe mystery snails 
the small ramshorns/pondsnails I have and otos seem to keep the grey looking brush or beard algae under control, but not the green stuff

and do ramshorns eat spot algae? I have a few baby ramshorns/pondsnails in the tank that were stowaways but they are extremely small and if they are eating the spot algae I cant tell, I was wondering if the adults would 
they havent eaten any of my plants yet but I think its cuz they are fed well


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## xavinovic (May 30, 2012)

I was not able to see the picture, but if it's the same hair algae I had if you do a complete black out. This being said cover your tank with foil and cut the light out for several days or maybe 2 weeks it will go away. I had my tank like this for 2-3 weeks and it work perfectly.


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## nyxkitten (Jul 24, 2012)

algaefix worked for me on the hair algae I had. But supposedly it kills snails and shrimp so watch out for that.


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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

true sae will also get mean as they get older and dont eat algae once they get bigger. the main thing you want to do is test your water. if you have algae issues then there is something going on with the water chemistry.


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## inthepacific (Oct 21, 2012)

SAE get too huge and fat and will stop eating algae if you feed the tank anything else. so basically they'll eat algae if there isn't anything else to eat. Amano shrimp will eat it as well as nerite snails.


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## jimmyjam (Dec 25, 2008)

amanos is where its at


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## thelub (Jan 4, 2013)

Sae don't get mean as they mature. Those are cae. We have several true sae at the shop that are 5+ inches and are docile and still eat algae. We put them in different ta ks that experience bba outbreaks from time to time.


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