Common Name: Zebra Nerite
Scientific Name: Neritina Natalensis
Genus: Neritina
Wild Origin: Africa
Adult Size: 1in
**Note: All livestock orders will come carefully packaged with solid wall Styrofoam insulation and shipped via 1-day shipping only. No extra insulation needs to be added to your cart for your livestock.
The Zebra Nerite snail has a striking appearance that features black zebra-like stripes running down a gold shell. Nerite Snails are some of the best algae-eating snails to have in your planted tank. They are extremely easy to care for and undemanding. They feed entirely on algae alone and a small group of them can clean a large aquarium covered in diatoms within a few days. They do have a large appetite though and if they’ve eaten all the algae in the tank, it may be necessary to feed them algae wafers or blanched veggies. However, they have no interest in plant leaves so your aquascape is safe.
When choosing tank mates for your Nerites, avoid species that eat snails. These include Loaches, Crayfish, Large Cichlids, Goldfish, and other larger species. We prefer keeping our Nerites in most of our Buce tanks along with Amano Shrimp, Neocardina Shrimp, Caridina Shrimp, Oticinclus, Siamese Algae Eaters, Tetras, Cories, Bettas and other peaceful fish.
Key Features & Important Notes
- Tank-raised specimen.
- To increase survival rates, please allow 2-3 business days after placing an order to properly prepare live animal shipments.
Recommended Water Parameters
Listed information should be treated as general guidelines only. We encourage you to do thorough research before committing to keeping any livestock.
- Temperature Range: 72-82°F
- pH: 7-8.2
- GH: 5-8
- KH: 5-15
- Hardness: 12-25
- Brackish Tolerance: 1.000-1.005
Recommended Tank Size
3-5 gallons. We generally don’t recommend smaller tanks as snails produce a large amount of waste that will add to the tank’s bio-load.
Diet
Algae, biofilm, diatoms, decaying plant matter, spirulina powder, algae wafers, blanched vegetables
Breeding
Breeding Nerite snails successfully requires brackish water. In the home aquarium, Nerite Snails lay white eggs on tank decorations and plants. However, these eggs won’t mature in freshwater. The larvae of these snails require brackish environments with high salinity to undergo proper development. Rearing young snails would involve setting up a separate aquarium, given that adult snails are unable to endure the water conditions required to rear nerite larvae.