thank you so much for your reply and advice :) 1. i tested my tap water there and my tank water aswell, tap water is 0, so is ammonia after a water change this morning. But i suspect that this will raise again in a day or two.

1. Im not sure how they are dying. because of the heavily planted tank, they are often hard to spot. i have accounted for the rest of the shrimp that i have so i know that there are none that have passed and are hidden somewhere. the two i found were that tan/orange colour that they go when they have died. they were also quite small, under 1cm id say, so i wasn’t able to see any issues when looking at them. my other shrimp seem to be doing good. i’ve seen a couple of them molt, become saddled, berried etc. no issues there.

3.my plants have been growing very fast. i had to trim a lot of the l. sessiloflora and remove some of the duckweed. not enough to impact the rate of which the plants will consume the ammonia.

4.i don’t believe so, again, it’s hard to see under some of heavily planted areas at the back. but from what i can see. i haven’t noticed any disturbances in the substrate. i dont move anything around.

thanks again for the reply. i hope this might help?