Crushed Coral

[amy88]

Hi!

My axie recently got sick because the pet shop told me pebbles would do as substrate, he swallowed one and it took him a while to get over it. I now want to provide him with the finest subrate i can get so he can live comfortably. I have very soft water in my area, so i thought crushed coral would be good as substrate, to harden up the water. Has anyone else used crushed coral for thier axie? Any advice would be a great help. Thank you!

Amy

 

[Abrahm]

Crushed coral makes for a bad substrate. Even if you have very soft water having the whole substrate being crushed corals is going to cause large water chemistry shifts whenever you perform water changes. Your tank water will be quite hard and then you're going to be adding soft water which could possibly cause some shock.

It is better to treat your water to be hard before adding it to your tank. It is even better if you can get by without trying to change your water chemistry at all. How soft and acidic is your water?

 

[ianclick]

Hi Amy,

I agree with Abrahm, being limestone, coral will continually mess with your ph levels, Pool filter sand is pure white, silica based and a great alternative with a similar look.

 

[callina]

Hi,

pardon me, but I do not completly agree with my pre-posters. If you use only crushed coral as substrate, then they might be right.

You can mix crushed coral with sand.
I´m living in Germany and our tap-water is best quality, without any chlorine or chloramine, so it´s not necessary to dechlorinate the water and we can use it stright directly for the tank. But in my region the tap water is very soft, so I´ve mixed 25Kg sand and 4Kg crushed coral (same sized) for hardening up the water. By doing 20% water changes every second week I´ve not established any problems and the up- and downturns of the Ph-level are very soft.

btw.: Ph of my tap-water: 7.4

-Tina-

 

[SludgeMunkey]

If water hardness is an issue for you, I suggest bottled spring water. It is significantly easier than attempting to increase hardness by other means.

I also suggest a test of your tap water for hardness. Looking at the water quality reports for your area, there is quite a bit of variation by locale, dependent on the source, be it from the dam or from the desalination plant.

Another issue you should watch for is the pH. After reading a bit of the recent water related news there, it appears you folks have had a drastic shift in pH and TDS (Total Disolved Solids) recently.

A good liquid reagent based water testing kit from a pet shop is probably your wisest first choice before taking difficult measures like pH buffering and hardness adjustment.

Here is a few links I found that may help you out:

http://www.qwc.qld.gov.au/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=299

http://www.paulsaquariums.com/water_testing.htm

I have found personally, that the safest way to increase water hardness is through the use of freshwater aquarium salt and a good liquid reagent hardness testing kit. A few of our other Aussie members may be able to provide you with more detailed information.

 

[Darkmaverick]

Hi Amy,

I would have to go with Abrahm and Ian on this one. In general, the best measure is to avoid any action that complicates monitoring or maintenance.

In Australia, we can still use dechlorinated tap water. If water hardness is a concern, have a look at this link. It does give some 'recipes' that you can safely use to increase the water hardness. Alternatively, if you still want to used crushed corals, use them in very small quantities not as a substrate but in a little stocking bag that gradually increase water hardness.

http://www.axolotl.org/requirements.htm#hardness

Cheers.

 

[amy88]

Thank you everyone for your advice, i might try mixing sand with the coral.

 

[Jennewt]

I think that a small amount of crushed coral might be beneficial for the soft water. You might want to try keeping the coral separate, rather than mixing it with the sand, so if it has too much effect on your pH you can take it out without changing the entire substrate.

 

[ianclick]

I'm with Rayson and Jen

A small removable stocking of crushed coral would give you greater control.