Snails for the planted tank.

The most popular algae crew snail in the hobby (formerly Neritina natalensis, now Vittina natalensis). Bold zebra-striped shell and a relentless work ethic on glass and rocks. Will lay sterile white eggs everywhere in fresh water, accept it or move on.

Display snail in golden, ivory, blue, black, and magenta varieties. Personable, active, and large enough to count as a feature animal. Confirm Pomacea bridgesii (plant-safe) and not the apple snail (which destroys plants).

Either the easiest pet snail in the hobby or the pest you can't get rid of. Available in red, brown, blue, pink, and leopard variants when bred intentionally. Population scales with available food, keep feeding modest.

The clean-up crew that lives in the substrate. Aerates the gravel, eats detritus, and stays invisible during the day. Breeds via cloning so a single snail can start a colony, also why some aquarists call them a pest.

The pest-snail solution in a 2cm package. Distinctive yellow-and-brown striped conical shell. Buy 3–4 for a small outbreak; they will hunt the population down to nothing then live on protein supplements.

Slow-moving display snail with a long conical shell, prominent antennae, and a face that looks more rabbit than mollusc. Yellow, orange, white, black, and chocolate variants. Strict on warm hard alkaline water.

The detail-oriented nerite. Small black-and-yellow shells with distinctive horn spines. Especially good for nano tanks where a 2.5cm zebra nerite is too large to navigate the hardscape gaps.

Long, glossy black turret-shaped shell that looks more like a marine periwinkle than a freshwater snail. Tolerates fresh water indefinitely as long as hardness stays moderate — but won't breed unless given brackish conditions. The right algae crew snail for keepers who don't want a population explosion.

Almost always arrives as a hitchhiker on new plants. Often demonised but actually a useful clean-up crew member — eats fish-food leftovers, dead leaves, and biofilm. Population self-regulates with food supply; an outbreak is a feeding-too-much signal, not a snail problem.

A much larger ramshorn-shape relative of the apple snail family. The yellow-and-brown banded shell can reach 5 cm. Will graze live plants aggressively — best in hardscape-only tanks or with tough plants like Anubias and Bolbitis. Used in some regions for biological control of disease-carrying pond snails.

Zebra-striped apple snail relative — gold and dark-brown banding on a globose shell. Eats pest snail eggs, making it a gentler alternative to the assassin snail in a community tank. Slower-breeding than the Colombian ramshorn or pond snails, so doesn't take over.

Heavy, glossy olive-brown shell with a hard operculum (the 'trapdoor') that seals the snail in when threatened. Cold-tolerant — survives garden ponds in temperate climates and indoor unheated tanks. Livebearer rather than egg-layer, which makes population growth predictable.

The classic hitchhiker 'pest' snail, almost always arriving uninvited on new plants. It is really a tireless detritivore that clears waste and dead leaves rather than eating healthy plants, and its numbers are a mirror of how much you overfeed. Harmless and genuinely useful, and if a population booms the fix is less food or an assassin snail, not chemicals that foul the tank.