I saw a claim on a snail selling online store that Nerite snails will eat Cyanobacteria.. is there any truth to this? Anyone have any ideas?

Im actually getting some nerites soon anyway, and I have a bit of GBA as well (currently working on my awful tank balance to get rid), so I guess Ill see. Just thought Id throw it past you all.

I've never seen anything eat actively growing BGA with good reason, it's full of toxins. When iot dies back, then it may be eaten.

Regards,
Tom Barr

I swear to you that I have seen my pond snails eat a small patch clean. I'm not sure if they expired afterwards, but if they did, they took one for the team.

Read APD and Paul's comments on dying BGA vs healthy.
Same deal with plants that are hurting, snails will eat them as well

I'm very skeptical about herbivory, but everyone should be.
It took me several years to convince myself that SAE's can learn to maw R wallichii.
Many years to convince folks that smaller snails do not eat plants as was claimed for decades..........
Recently I've been convinced, and then only with a lot of proding that larger preg Cherry shrimp eat one red colored plant variety.

But as you can see, such events are very rare............


Regards,
Tom Barr

Some snails of the family Viviparidae consume cyanobacteria in their diet, Notopala waterhousei is one we have locally that does a good job. Here's some pics I took.

Before - http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3...1beforefg9.jpg
After - http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/7...02aftersu4.jpg

Im having a problem with blue green algae and have some within the riccia that I have floating in the tank. I recently bought 5 apple snails and since they arrive they have done nothing but float on the riccia grazing on something that takes their interest, they must be eating the algae

That's not BGA, that some other reddish stuff.
Apple snails are general plant eaters.

BGA can be quite transient, If you have a small amoutn and clean things well, add KNO3 etc, it can go away.

Look, I'm the defender of snails by every sense.
They are not appreciated nearly enough and every one thinks they are plague like algae.

But showing cause is tough, you need to learn to grow the algae well, they could just be mechanically loosing it, not consuming it, many such things occur.

I have tanks that had BGa and it went away without any herbivores of fish present. So the herbivore added there would not have caused it.

Showing cause is tough, I've tried many species of snail, there may be one, but most times its a person tryig to sell them or equating correlation with cause.

It might seem like a hard hiney way to be, but that will show a lot more cause and effect than correlation ever will.

No one would add PO4 if we used that standard.
Still, adding more snails, as long as they do not eat plants is a good thing generally.

Regards,
Tom Barr