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Hi everyone. I enjoyed reading all the posts in this forum and thought to share my set up of a new tank to gather feedback and advice, as well as to share my excitement and joy throughout this process.

This is my first own set up tank. 10 days into the cycling phase. I have added marimo, one horned nerite and one zebra nerite to help clean the tank.

However, there are a lot of brown matter/debris seen on the marimo and substrate about 4 days after I have added the marimo and snails. Are they poo? Any thoughts on what this could be? Should I remove them?

Welcome to the Opaeula forum! Its always great to see new tanks and new members, right then strait to the point the brown stuff is indeed snail poop and i wouldn't worry about it. I would leave it in your tank as it will help cycle it faster. By the way that is some very nice rock you have in your setup! Keep the photos coming.

Thanks for the quick reply Odin :)

Why is the poop good for cycling? Is it good in the long term? I'm just worried it'll continue pooping like that and it'll produce too much ammonia for the tank. Will the pooping slow down once the tank matures?

The snail poop will feed the good bacteria in your tank and encourage them to establish quicker, this bacteria will convert the ammonia in the water into nitrites and in turn anther colony of bacteria will convert that nitrites into nitrates. The nitrates will feed the algae and any plants you have in your tank which is great because the algae feeds your Opae ula shrimp. Your tank will get a bit unsightly to start with i'm afraid until everything settles and finishes the cycle. You will get lots of snail poop which sits around for a while and a lot of biofilm/brown algae and green algae. This will all settle down and disappear when your tank inhabitants eat it eventually.

I see. Thanks for the information :) can't be helped in this case then.

I'll update further when I do water testing this week. About 4 days ago, I tested and ammonia is at 0.5 while ph is between 7.5 to 8.

Does the ph go up by itself? Otherwise I'll need to think of how to put in crushed corals or egg shells to push it up.

Over time the PH will lower and the water will become more acidic, it wont cause issues to the shrimp to begin with but the snails will suffer and their shells will start to deteriorate and will get holes in them, there are lots of ways to buffer the water and keep the PH nice and high (high 7 to 8+). Depending on the look of the tank and how you wish to proceed you could use a glass feeding bowl with some crushed coral in, add a piece of limestone/ocean rock/Texas holey rock or just add eggshells or a cuttle fish bone.

I opted for a chunk of ocean rock, I know it doesn't fit in well with all black lava rock but I've made it into a centre piece feature

I thought for breeding of the shrimps, ph should be 8 and above?

Agree. Right now it is an aesthetic issue on how to incorporate the crushed corals into the tank.

Actually I have got some crushed corals hidden underneath all that substrate. But I'm not sure if that's sufficient. How much is needed to buffer? Maybe I have about 100 g of it hidden.

The Opae ula will breed in PH levels lower then 8, we have members who have breeding going on and they don't even have anything buffering their water but I always advise to have something because you don't want a PH crash in the tank because it will kill everything in the tank due to very unhealthy water parameters. The crushed coral you have is enough but it does need to be accessible to the water to actually buffer the water, it breaks down in the acidic water and causes it to lower the acidity so if its hidden under your substrate it may not give you the effect you are wanting. All you can do is monitor the PH levels and keep an eye on the condition of your snails shells, if you find white spots or holes then you will have to make some changes.

Nice tankgreat setup! What kind of rock is that?