No real algae growth, good or bad?

[shrimpy4]

I’ve noticed I’ve never had any real algae growth in my tanks. The only plant life is the chaeto I picked up from Mustafa. In my 5 gallon, a very thin layer of brown algae is on the surface of my tank, but looking at photos of some other tanks there are mats of green algae.

Is this a good or a bad thing? I’m down to only one snail, so I don’t think they’ve ever been able to find enough to eat. Now that my shrimp are breeding again since I’m not feeding the tank, I’m more worried if my dwarf hermit, the last snail, or even the shrimp have enough of anything to eat I’m there.

View down the top of the tank lid just to show there’s no real algae growth:

[minishrimps]

It's my experience that Dwarf Hermits needs to be fed pretty frequently. So, if you aren't feeding it weekly or every other week at least, you probably should. I feed mine a mix of Hikari Carb pellets and and Hikari Algae wafer. I alternate between the two every week. I put five little crab pellets in each week, one for each of the five crabs I have. I break the algae wafer up into a couple pieces and they take turns feeding on it. They come quickly to eat the food everytime I feed them so I know they are hungry. I don't know what species your crab is but it likely needs some food, more so than the shrimps and snails. It won't hurt your tank if you throw some food in there for the crab. The shrimp and snails will eat the leftovers if there are any.

[Mustafa]

I doubt the snails died (IF they are even dead...they may just be buried in the substrate) due to lack of food. The most likely culprit would be the hermit crab. Other than that, if you really want to see algae growing, then you'd have to feed more. If your shrimp are happy and multiplying I wouldn't change anything.