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Checked on the tank today after almost a month. Brown slime problem still prevalent. Sadly, two visible dead shrimp in the tank, one at the front, the other at the very back among the chaeto. Will do 80% water change and water tests and report back.

Oh man that sucks, as you said test the water, I'm going to guess high levels of nitrates. Huge water change is a good idea. Let us know how the results come out. Sorry for your loss :(


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The chaetomorpha seems to have grown very strongly in the week since the big water change. The brown algae appears to have reduced, but there is still plenty of it.

There are still many opae ula still alive, but it is hard to count them since many of them hide.

Did not have much time to do a second water change this week.

Can you see any rotting or dying plant matter in the tank?

Some of the thicker stemmed-type chaeto is still in there and parts of it do seem to be dying off. The thinner-stemmed chaeto is doing very well though. I am planning to go ahead with the "moss wall" idea soon, so when I do that I will have a good opportunity to separate out the chaeto.

Doesn't look like there's been many casualties among the shrimp. Will do another water test in the coming days. Have got a new heater too and intend to install that soon. Once that is in, I will try and increase the temperature to around 25 degrees C (77 F).

Will try to order the zebra nerite snail once the situation has cleared up a little more.

So the water has cleared and a lot of the algae seems to be disappearing off the rocks now since the new heater was added. No green algae left. The temperature is generally 25-26 degrees c (77-79 F) which is in line to the temperature at which opae ula related has his tank.

The moss wall has been installed and growth has started. Shrimp seem to like to hide in it. I will probably add more chaeto to buff it up. Chaeto looks a lot smaller when compressed together.

Still substantial brown slime on the glass, heater and the rocks.

Nerite also arrived today. I have put it in a bucket with about 2 litres of fresh water and a clump of java moss covered in blanketweed. Has not moved so far. Planning to move the snail and the water into the main tank later today if it moves by the time I next get to it (I have read these are mostly nocturnal, so put a cover over the bucket). If not, I will leave it be until it does move. Need to make sure that it is alive. I am hoping it will tackle the brown slime problem.

Cool! You have a picture of the moss wall?

Still in very early stages. I have left the top open so I can easily put more chaeto in, so it isn't as tightly tied as it will be in its final form. But already you can see some chaeto fronds coming out of the holes in the plastic mesh. Hoping that over time, the mesh will become less visible.

In addition, the nerite has moved so I believe it is alive, although I have yet to see it moving. I am planning to do a full water test before moving it into the tank.

Thanks for the update, that snail is really going to make a good job on the brown algae

My nitrite level was <0.25 mg/L, and my nitrate levels were also very low. I did a roughly 30% water change replaced it with the heated fresh water from the bucket, adding the snail that was in the bucket at the same time. I had put my old heater in the bucket, so the temperature wasn't too different. I am hoping by adding the fresh water, I have lowered the SG a little to make it more manageable for the snail. Will try to bring it back up over the next few days.


The annoying thing about this picture is that there is a patch of brown slime algae directly in front of the snail making it impossible to take a non-blurry photo. Hopefully the snail eats that first!