Nerites: The Stylin’ Cleanup Crew

by Emily Dourm May 10, 2024 3 min read

Nerite snails are freshwater mollusks originating from the East Coast of Africa, commonly found in rivers and streams. With various colors and patterns like Batik, Horned, Helmet, and Onion, they're popular in aquariums for their algae-cleaning abilities. Besides their practical role, their beautiful shells and grazing behavior make them enjoyable to observe. We house them on pool-filtered sand or bare-bottom tanks with Matten filters, supplementing their diet and enhancing their environment with Indian Almond Leaves and LED lighting for natural algae growth. Nerite snails are one of the best-eating animals you can find for an aquarium, but what makes them even cool are all the varieties, here are a few of my personal favorites.

Red Racer Nerite |Vittina waigiensis

Lets start strong with everyone's favorite, the Red Racer Nerite! These snails have unique shells with stunning colors on their shells. Their colors range from reds to oranges and yellows with unique striping on their shells.

Zebra Nerite | Neritina Natalensis

The Zebra Nerite although you would expect them all to look very similar, their shells are all still so unique. Their stripes can range from large to super small.

Horned Nerite | Clithon corona/diadema

The Horned Nerites have such unique shells. Not only do they have a mix of colors and patterns including beautiful black and yellow spiral patterns but they also have what looks like little horns on their shells!

The most common concern with Nerites:

Do Nerites lay a lot of eggs?

One problem many people have with nerites is their production of eggs. Nerites will often lay unfertilized eggs, with or without the presence of a male. However, in our experience, we have found they only lay eggs in poor water quality and we’ve found this is a survival response or an act of self-preservation. In our experience, they typically won’t lay eggs if they're in proper conditions.

Aquasabi has a great article referencing snails and their eggs,

"Many aquarium enthusiasts, however, perceive snails as optically unpleasant, especially when it comes to a massive increase in their population - a snail plague. One has to keep in mind, that explosive growth always has to do with the framework conditions. If the snails find plenty of food, this will reflect in their population density. Very often snail plagues come up during the cycling phase of an aquarium. During start-up, it always comes to growth peaks in various species of algae, which are excellent snail food - again directly noticeable in the propagation of the snails. As a rule, this will even out later: Through a lower food supply and food competitors, the population goes back to normal.

In aquariums with a dense fish stock, and accordingly intense feeding, the snail population can be high due to the high feed intake. If the invertebrates get out of hand, the aquarium owner should definitely reconsider his feeding behavior."

Read the full Aquasabi blog post here

Discover the diverse world of Nerite snails, each boasting unique colors and patterns while sharing exceptional algae-cleaning capabilities. As top contenders for algae control in aquariums, Nerites stand out for their effectiveness. Which Nerite variety captures your fascination the most? Share your favorite in the comments!

Emily Dourm

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