Too rough with snairls?

[chvynva916]

Two questions:

 

1-I have small circular (maybe the size of a pencil point) brownish greenish algea like stuff on the front tank of my acrylic nano. It won't scrape off. It doesn't look like it's bothering anybody, but it makes the tank look awful. How do I get it off?

 

2-Can I rip my snails off of what they are stuck to, or will that rip them up?

[Physh1]

It's likely to be diatom algae. Very common. It's much tougher than most algaes and it takes a little elbow grease to scrub it off. Snails do go for it but usually not when there is easier algae to eat around:P.

 

Ripping snails is no good. Be very gentle if you need to move them but there really is no point to doing it. If you "need" to do this just twist them VERY lightly and they tend to release on their own. Let them release themselves....don't pull them off....all you need to do is trigger the release.

 

Cameron

[tgrupert]

once I needed to get a snail out to repare it's shell. I tried tristing it around for quite a while and finaly gav it a few tugs. I didn't know it's mantle was partialy detached and the shell came off and the rest stayed on the glass. this was a very tough experience. I gave it a alchahol/copper bath so it wouldn't be suffering the next few days. It still kills me whenb I think about it. Since then I have redeemed myself and saved about half a dozen snails in LFSs. Somtimes you can get a credit card to work on large snails.