My tank has a lot of driftwood in it, so the water is pretty acidic (6.5 generally). I'm currently adding a lot more plants to it after upgrading the lights, and I would like to add some MTS or nerites to help with clean-up and algae control. And because I think snails are cute. But I'm worried that their shells won't develop due to the acidity. Has anyone had any experience with this issue?

My tank water gets down to 6.2 during the day with my CO2 running and all of my nerites are very happy and have been for a few months now -- I got my tank in December of last year. Snails are rather tough. Even my cherry and amano shrimp are doing fine, and they are not near as tough as snails.

I think if you have adequate calcium in the water - good GH - snails will do fine at any pH the fish and plants do well in. It is the calcium that is missing in some soft water that harms snails.

All FW mollusk have a thin protective layer that prevents their shells from dissolving.
If you damage the layer, they will dissolve.

If not, they do fine, the Nerites I've found in FL came from pH's of 5.0 and no measurable GH.

They had plenty of them and they where 50miles from the sea.

Regards,
Tom Barr

That's funny... "tough as snails". HA!

Ok besides that I thought I'd toss in that I use wonder shells from american aquarium products and the wealth of calcium and other antioxidants seem to help in many ways--one of them being that my mystery snail doubles in size every month and has never had shell cracks like so many aquarists complain about. PS- I don't overfeed my fish and I vacuum pretty well...the snail grows well because of the wonder shells it appears. I never saw it grow like that before I used them.

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Tommy Butler