Marine Nerite Snail

Care at a glance

Overview

A small, peaceful, reef-safe grazer that stays under a couple of centimetres so it never disturbs corals or rockwork, making it a favourite for nano reefs. It works the rock and glass hard for algae and gets on fine in groups. Its one quirk is a tendency to climb out of open-top tanks, especially right after being added.

In the wild

Marine nerites live in intertidal zones of the Pacific and Caribbean, grazing rock in the splash and surge zone. That intertidal background is why they often try to climb above the waterline, so a tank with a lid or a thick rim lip helps keep them from wandering out. They graze live rock and glass and, like other snails, are sensitive to copper and high nitrate.

Good to know

Nerita and the closely related Vittina are round, hard-shelled snails with highly variable markings. They are widely rated among the most efficient algae eaters in the hobby, taking diatoms, film algae, finer hair algae, and several cyanobacteria including Lyngbya. They lay small white egg capsules on hard surfaces, but the larvae need saltwater and are extremely difficult to raise, so they effectively do not reproduce in a closed reef tank.

Did you know

Marine nerites will happily lay egg capsules all over the tank, but the larvae almost never survive in captivity, so despite constant egg-laying the population never actually grows.

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