Which snails for cyano?

[danieljones8623]

Hey everybody. So my tank is a month old. I wanted to wait until some algae or something started growing in my tank to get some snails. After 4 weeks, I now have a light dusting here and there on the sand of what looks to be cyano. My question is, what’s the best snail to get to help tidy this up? Also how many should I get to start out?

 

[danieljones8623]

Hey everybody. So my tank is a month old. I wanted to wait until some algae or something started growing in my tank to get some snails. After 4 weeks, I now have a light dusting here and there on the sand of what looks to be cyano. My question is, what’s the best snail to get to help tidy this up? Also how many should I get to start out?

This is it just for reference.

 

[WheatToast]

This is it just for reference.

I am not sure if that really is Cyanobacteria, but a picture under white light would help with identification (ex. with a flashlight).

 

[Schraufabagel]

Pretty sure that’s just diatoms. Do you vacuum your sand bed?

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

That looks more like dinos or just dust algea than cyano. Either way I’d get banded trochus snails or cerith snails. Cerith are easier to find for me and I always keep them in my tank. They eat more or less all varieties of algea. I have approximately 20 in my biocube 32. They’re borrowers so they stir up your sand and they’ll breed in your tank.

Trochus are probably the best all around snail there is and they can flip themselves over if they fall. I have a hard time finding them locally and they’re expensive (5$/snail) but they’re my favorite. I have like 4-5 of them in my 32.

nassarius snails will stir your sand bed up but they are carnivores and will sometimes eat algea eating snails that can’t flip themselves back over.

If you want just something to stir the sand and want to wait on algea waters for the rockwork id suggest a fighting conch snail. I have one in both my biocubes and they are stupid cool little snails. They get decently sized (3” long maybe total) but they stir the sand up great. Mine keeps my sand bed looking solid white and devoid of algea. I don’t have a lot of clear sand for him to sift and he’s doing fine so you can get away with them in smaller sized tanks. My conch in my 16 gallon biocube is in the video below.

you didn’t give a tank size but for reference I have 4-5 trochus, 20 ish cerith, 1 turbo snail, 2 astrea, 6 nassarius, and 2 spiny astrea snails in my 32 gallon biocube. Im
Overstocked but that’s because my cerith and nassarius keep breeding. There may be a margarita snail in there somewhere but he hides so much idk if he’s still in

 

[danieljones8623]

I am not sure if that really is Cyanobacteria, but a picture under white light would help with identification (ex. with a flashlight).

Here you go. It’s why browner when illuminated by a flashlight. Aquarium lights do amazing things because it looks straight up red under my Kessil light

 

[WheatToast]

That looks more like dinos or just dust algea than cyano.

Here you go. It’s why browner when illuminated by a flashlight.

Yup! Definitely one of those algae (not Cyanobacteria). Dust algae includes diatoms.

 

[danieljones8623]

What would be the best for this? CUC or vacuuming the sand?