[odin]

You will end up getting brown algae first and that can take a month or so, you could always drop a food flake in or something similar to get some ammonia going to speed it up,

Edit: Just be careful with using the biodogest, i read somewhere i can reduce algae growth but i'm not 100%.

[AdeDunn]

Yeah, allegedly it reduces the growth of cyanobacter. One type of algae I wont miss. lol Plan is to split 1 ampoule between the Opae tank, my now redone 30 litre cube and my wife's 60 litre once it's set up, so I'm not dosing too much at one time trying to use it up.

I've also ordered some macro algaes to try to acclimatise. Some chaeto and also some Caulerpa prolifera which I researched and read that it can do quite well in a brackish tank so long as you acclimatise it. Kind of hoping it works out and goes well and I end up with excess brackish grown macros to share. With my luck lately though it'll come through the door as green slime (already got a bottle of that for 2nd oldest daughter's bike.... lol).

Oh and yeah, I put some fish granules in right when I first set up as a source of nitrogenous wastes etc. If that doesn't work, I might put a tiny bit of biomature in there, that stuff usually kicks HARD. lol No diatoms in there yet either though, it's still pristine. lol The coral sand shines....

[AdeDunn]

The Caulerpa prolifera arrived, and as predicted it looks half dead... Put it in a tub of full strength sea water anyway, might give it a bit of time to recover before I start to reduce the salinity.

[odin]

Good idea, let us know how it goes. I tried your standard macro algae (the stuff you have in marine sumps) and put it strait into my brackish tank and it died so hopefully acclimatising it will work.

[AdeDunn]

Fingers crossed. I found a thread on a US planted tank forum. A guy on there tried all different ones for an Opae tank and found that Caulerpa prolifera and chaetomorpha did best before a bung of saltwater gammarus got in and ate the lot. I would really really like to be able to get it to grow and multiply, and as I said make brackish suitable stuff available to people as not everybody has the time or the inclination to try to acclimate it. Plus, if we can get stocks of it established in the UK Opae, especially the Caulerpa as Chaeto is just ugly, hobby it would be rather cool I reckon. Could be it works in Opae tanks, whilst melting in most other brackish tanks, thanks to the higher salinity. Most of the brackish tanks I see people discussing are more fresh than salt.

[AdeDunn]

The Chaetomorpha arrived yesterday. It was such a big portion I put most of it in the tub with the caulerpa but put a couple of handfuls into the Opae tank to see how it would looks, and also as I figured it might "innoculate" the tank with some marine algae spores.

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[odin]

Lets hope it works out, keep us updated on its progress!

[AdeDunn]

I ordered some more caulerpa prolifera along with some caulerpa taxifolia to try last week. Arrived today and is a LOT healthier! So fingers crossed, but I am going to need a bigger container... Luckily my wife is planning to breed nerites, so we're going to need a fully marine tank or 2 setting up for rearing the babies anyway.

[odin]

LOL tanks are like Pringles... once you pop and all that I've heard breeding Nerites is difficult, ive had mine laying loads of eggs but they never came to anything and weirdly since i have upgraded tanks they have laid nothing. At least with Nerites you can have some in your Opae ula tank.

[AdeDunn]

Aye. I did a bit of research for her. Apparently you have to move the eggs into FULL sea water once they're laid and keep them there until the baby snails have proper shiny little shells, you can then acclimate them back to either freshwater or brackish water. We might fail completely, but as you say at least we can keep some in the Opae tank.

I'm actually planning a marine shrimp tank too eventually..... I've had multiple tank syndrome for many years. lol There are some gorgeous marine species though to pick from, would be a shame not too.