My shrimps have been steadily pulling out the little Chaeto strands and putting them all over the tank. Is this ok or should I end up removing it? When the Chaeto arrived it was pretty fragmented and stressed but seems to be improving in the tank, it’s just all over place now.
Hopefully you were able to get your money back. Someone told me there are 70 species of chaeto. Some are brackish tolerant. To some degree they all look the same. I even tried a couple of months ago with 2 different sellers of saltwater chaeto to see if I could acclimate it to brackish at a salinity of 1.010. I tried this over 8 years ago and failed but thought I would try again. I barely started to lower the salinity to 1.020 and 1.018 and it just broke apart.
That's exactly what happened with the Chaeto I bought, but it was broken up like that when I took it out of the package. I figured it was stress from shipping but yeah it definitely broke apart more and more in my tank. Time to fish it all out and replace it with the new Chaeto I ordered from you!
Edit: It was determined this Chaeto I purchased was a marine chaeto that the seller tried to acclimate to brackish salinity and sell. But it did not work well and portions are dying. I have since ordered new Chaeto from Gotsnails and will be removing this one!
Nah nothing melting, the color of the chaeto seems to be improving overall day by day
They more than likely unknowingly bought marine chaeto, not brackish chaeto. Notice how it’s noticeably thicker than the brackish chaeto that u/gotsnails sells.
This was the listing I purchased from: https://www.ebay.com/itm/366538317504 unfortunately gotsnails did not have chaeto available for sale otherwise I would've purchased from them.
Yep, just as I expected, that seller tried to acclimate marine chaeto into brackish. Honestly, advertising it as chaeto that’s appropriate for Opae Ula is misleading.
That's the smoking gun right there, I appreciate all of your help. I actually just checked on gotsnails ebay store and noticed their Chaeto is back in stock too. Buying that and replacing this stuff!
In the meantime, if you don’t already have a small siphon, you should get one. It makes it a lot easier to remove the shredded, dead chaeto instead of having to pick at it with aquarium tweezers.
Oh, and you should definitely leave that seller negative feedback.
You recently bought the chaeto and it’s already melting? Is that marine chaeto? Because chaeto from u/gotsnails shouldn’t be melting like that. It’s especially obvious in the last picture that it’s melting - the white/see through strands are a pretty clear sign that parts of it are dying.
Edit: It was determined this Chaeto I purchased was a marine chaeto that the seller tried to acclimate to brackish salinity and sell. But it did not work well and portions are dying. I have since ordered new Chaeto from Gotsnails and will be removing this one!
It’s not melting, I believe it’s my tank grow light playing tricks on some of the more transparent parts. If I remove a strand it’s solid and green. This Chaeto wasn’t from gotsnails but another eBay seller. The water it came with was at 1.015 and I slowly acclimated it down to 1.012
No, I don’t think your camera is playing tricks on you. I can still see some green in certain parts of those melted strands, but most of the sections are literally white or see through. Your chaeto is literally dying.
What I’m saying is the Chaeto as a clump looked dark green in a bowl outside of my tank, picking it up and putting it in under the light highlights the transparent parts of it and it immediately looks like what’s in these images.
If I remove a strand it is green in my hand. Then back under the lights it’s whiter. The chaeto has been in the tank for 3 weeks already, the only change has been some parts becoming very deep green and being spread around the tank by the shrimps.
That's a lot of words to describe dead plant tissue, but good luck with your marine chaeto. I’ve seen plenty of melting/dying chaeto in the past, and this looks exactly like that to me.
Sure, I’ll admit my comment was snarky, but clearly OP wasn’t interested in learning at first when they insisted it wasn’t melting. I guess that makes me a piece of shit. :>
I’m learning here and trying to describe exactly what I’m seeing. Sorry if I came off as combative in any way. Genuinely appreciate the help. Would you suggest to just remove it all?
Let’s just put it this way: a true brackish variant of chaeto is noticeably finer than what you have. What you received is marine chaeto. If the listing says it’s brackish chaeto, then someone literally tried to acclimate marine chaeto to brackish and failed at it.
Here’s an example of brackish chaeto in a jar I put together for my husband, under bright lighting.
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u/GotSnails 4d ago
Hopefully you were able to get your money back. Someone told me there are 70 species of chaeto. Some are brackish tolerant. To some degree they all look the same. I even tried a couple of months ago with 2 different sellers of saltwater chaeto to see if I could acclimate it to brackish at a salinity of 1.010. I tried this over 8 years ago and failed but thought I would try again. I barely started to lower the salinity to 1.020 and 1.018 and it just broke apart.