Snail Or No Snail

I've been helping a friend set up a 55 gallon and so far all is going good but he is having an issue with green algea. The lights are on a timer set for about 8 hours a day. The main question is what snail would be best for a tank this size? The another question is should I worry about the angel in the tank attacking it? Also he plans to get a clown pleco and would a snail be competition for food? I don't plan for the pleco to live off algae but I believe they both feed on it. Additionally, when the fund are available we plan to add plants to help use up extra nutrients.

 

A nerite snail would be good or some large shrimp like ghost shrimp

 

A Clown pleco (Panaqolus maccus) or two should be enough to take care of the green algae very quickly. This is from my experience. Mine even keeps the filter outtake clear of algae growth. A snail would thus be quite unnecessary. Keep in mind these plecos are wood-eating plecos, so some driftwood is really needed for them to rasp on.

 

If you add too many algae eaters, you will have to supplement them.

I’m in this situation. I drop an algae wafer in every other night for the pleco. And I add a slice of zucchinI in for the snail and the pleco.

 

We have a large piece of driftwood he can rasp on and algae wafers and zucchinI are no problem to add. I was wondering as I'm not sure when the pleco will be added and the algae doesn't seem to want to wait for it either. Another problem is the tighter areas where a snail could get to easy and a pleco may struggle. Would a nerite snail be best or is there a better snail?

 

Nerite is the best algae snail.

And they don’t breed in fresh water.

 

Thanks I don't plan to add more than probably one snail and the one pleco so I don't see them causing a food shortage but I will still advise occasionally supplementing their diets with something besides just algea.