I came back from a brief trip to find a tiny ramshorn snail on a leaf. I have a brown algae explosion at the moment, so I am kind of happy to see he was doing that, but it looks like these are generally considered pests. Should I get the snail out of there?



Good news is that I have had Nitrite crash while I was away! Tank is cycled, very pleased.

I find that ramshorns don't overbreed unless you overfeed. Then you can get a lot of snails, but they are easy to get rid of by adding a piece of lettuce or other vegetable to the tank. They will collect on the vegetable and you can then take the whole lot of them out at once.

I have a few ramshorns in all of my tanks and don't find them to be a problem.

Problem is that I will be having crabs and snails, so I want food on the bottom for them, do they overcompete?

I don't find that they do. I never have a problem with them in my tanks.