These shrimp help keep the bottom clean. The shrimp can be substituted for fish and will live quite well with most of the recommended fish. They will help in keeping the system clean of algae. Most aquarium stores try to eliminate these snails and consider them pests. You should ask your aquarium dealer for a few when ordering plants.
Most aquarium stores have many types of small snails in the tanks holding their aquatic plants.
Only use smaller common pond snails, small rams horn, or nerite snails. We find the nerites to be great little algae cleaners and are quite hardy too. They are too big for the systems. For a well-balanced system, we recommend that you use 3 or 4 different species of plants. It is important to select plants that are truly aquatic and not those that can simply tolerate being submerged.