# snails generating green water?



## coopers (Jul 7, 2007)

Is it possible that snails help generate green water? I have been fighting GW for a few months now. It went away at one point from water changes and nothing more. But then it cam e back a few weeks later. I do not over feed by any means. But the snails always eat decaying plant matter. For the most part my plants are healthy, but they always manage to get a loose val leaf, or bacopa leaf. I know I should remove these from the tank, but the trouble is during the week I get home after the lights went out and I simply dont have the time everyday for this. On the weekend I do my maintenance.

So I know the decaying plant can contribute to green water, but my questions is do the snails speed up the process? If so I will clear out a bunch of snails so the plants will not decompose before I can manually remove them on the weekend. 

The reason I ask is because I like the snails and will only remove them if necessary.

While we are at it, I have anachris as a floater, but it has gotten very thin over time and is not growing well, but it is not dying either. Are there any other floaters you recommend that help with gw? I have 80 watts over a 55 gallon.

Thanks


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## tkos (Oct 30, 2006)

I don't see how snails would be generating gw. They will mostly be eating waste material (old food, poop, deacying plant matter) which would just end up rotting and leading to excess nutrients in the water column anyway.

I use pennywort as a floater. It is nice and looks like lilly pads on the surface. It can quickly take over but is easy to trim back.


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

I don't think the snails are generating the green water either. Have you looked through the forums for the threads concerning green water? I've been lucky so far and haven't had to fight it myself.

Amazon frogbit is a great floater and very easy to thin out since it's so big it can be scooped out without trouble. Really, any floater that grows well for you should help with the green water by reducing the nutrients in the water column. I just really like the frogbit since it's so easy to deal with.


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## CherylH (Jul 22, 2004)

I don't think I'd blame green water on snails, but they can be used to culture infusoria--so maybe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infusoria
http://www.petfish.net/infu.htm


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## natdc2 (Mar 2, 2008)

^Yup. Snails can't be the true culprit of green water.


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## Jookie (Sep 30, 2003)

Actually, I believe that snails can indirectly cause greenwater algae. I had a tank that was covered in hair algae. I released an apple snail and he devoured all the algae. One day later the tank started turning green. A week later I couldn't see through it. 

I remember reading a long time ago that one of the ways to generate green water was to allow snails to eat the algae. The idea is that the macro algae gets eaten, but there is still a nutrient imbalance that the micro algae take advantage of. Cure the imbalance and you cure the algae.


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