how many snails?

My tank continually gets the green algae on the glass, and it grows pretty rapidly. As of late i have been using RO/DI water and been doing atleast 10% changes a week. I do not use a protein skimmer. I also only have about 15 snails. I see that the snails eat the green algae as i can see there movement through it.
I am wondering how many snails should i get for a 55 gallon with 75lbs LR?

 

What kind of snails have you already got? Not all snails eat all algae so it's important to first know what kind eats what algae

 

i have black turbo snails and turbo snails. and they eat the algae

 

I think you're asking two questions here.


The green algae on your glass... I'm betting this is the powdery stuff - for this, you want a mag-float (or similar) and you should just manually clean this off every so often (I do it every other day).

Snails do eat it, but they'll never keep it even mostly off. It forms too quick.

This is completely normal.


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As far as how many snails you should get, I would visit ReefCleaners.org | Clean Up Crews and Macro Algae - Home and fill out their form. My 55 gallon reef aquarium with 100lbs of LR has about 150-200 snails total.


I would also suggest running a protein skimmer, but if you are curious, it will do nothing for this green stuff on the glass.

I can't remember what the green stuff is called.