Can I put a snail in with betta?

[ozsan]

I have a nice little tank with a pretty red betta in it, it was a gift from my son. I've put a small fliter in with a low return flow, a heater and he has a plastic plant and light. My problem is recently this horrible brown algae has started covering his nice white pebbles. It doesn't seem to be bothering him but it looks terrible. The tank is about 1 gallon if I have my conversions right. My question is how can I get rid of this brown stuff and would a small snail do the job and be ok with my beautiful betta?
Sorry if this wuestion has been asked and answered befre but I'm new to keeping bettas.
Thanks
Ozsan

 

[PreciousGems]

In my opinion, a one gallon is small enough to just scrub the algea off. You should be doing weekly water changes even with the filter, so this shouldn't be hard. Just dump everything out and scrub the tank, you can by algea scrapers at a pet store or wal*mart. I guess you could get a snail, but becareful which ones. Some of them overpopulate and take over the entire aquarium. I haven't had much luck with snails for removing algea.

Alexa

 

[ozsan]

I'm doing a partial change of water every 2 days and cleaning the sides and rocks when I do that but within 24 hours the brown stains are back. My little Ren seems to get angry with me everytime I mess up his bubble nest with the scrubbing and water changes that's why I wondered about a snail.
Thank you for you help, sorry to ask such basic questions but I'm a new betta owner and am trying to learn.
Ozsan

 

[FroggyFox]

Does your tank get much sunlight? Sometimes the brown algae shows up because of low light? The only snails I've ever had take care of some brown algae are apple snails, but they might be too big to put in your 1G. Have you thought about maybe setting up a 5G for your betta? If you did that, you could get an otocinclus (otto) who would keep your tank free of that pesky brown algae. I think a 1 is too small for a betta and an otto though.

 

[ozsan]

I would love to get a bigger tank but there's just no room, he's in my office next to my computer monitor where I can talk to him while I work. I have a light on his tank but there's not a lot of direct sunlight although he's near a window, the shades are usually drawn as I need the light off the screen for my photo restoration jobs.

 

[twoluvcats]

snails are dirty!! You'd have to be cleaning the tank MORE with a snail.

next time you clean the tank, try scrubbing the algae off 1st, then wait a bit and THEN siphon out water....this way the little algae critters sink to the bottom and you can suck them up...if you don't do this, then they just quickly reattach to the sides and start gowing again.

 

[culinaryartcook]

How much/often do you feed him? Sometimes an overfeeding will help with a algae growth. Other then that I'm out of ideas...hm....

 

[phOOey]

why not try a pond snail? i have loads at the mo and they dont seem to be getting much bigger than 1cm or so, and they've eaten all the green algae in my tank so i guess they would probably eat brown to.

 

[ozsan]

How much/often do you feed him?

He gets fed twice a day but only bout 4 little pellets each time. He always eats them all. It's funny most to the algae is near the filter return, I don't know if that's having something to do with it.