lisamommy

I got an onion(?) snail about a week ago for algae eating. He spent the first day on the glass and I moved him to our very algea covered cave ornament and he started cleaning it up. Next day he was missing all day. The following day he was back for a while and then I went away for 4 days and nobody claims to have seen him. When I returned I found him tucked away inside the cave where there is no algae so I moved him again to where the algae is and he immediately disappeared again. Is this their nature or is he strange? I really want him to clean up the algae in the tank and he doesn't seem to be doing his job.

TFA101

Snails aren't very useful when it comes to cleaning algae, and they like to hide, be it in a cave or in the gravel (literally). I'm assuming you have the typical green algae, so I would recommend getting a couple more ottos so they can be bolder and work as a group in the algae cleaning process.