Benefits Of Crushed Coral?

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caymangone

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Mar 8, 2004
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Hi all,

I'm getting ready to do a complete swap of my crushed coral for playsand. My question, what would it hurt to add back some crushed coral to the playsand? Doesn't crushed coral have SOME value like calcium buffer source. Not to mention, by adding some two year old crushed coral back to the tank, you would be seeding the new sand. Any harm in doing this?
 
I'd say there's a real benefit to adding some of the cc to your sandbed. It will certainly help seed the new sand with bacteria. As far as I can tell, the main disadvantage of the cc bed is that the grain size is too big, so that detritivores don't like living in it and debris collects. Mixing a small amount in with finer-grained sand will avoid these problems.

As far as buffering, some argue that cc helps maintain pH. In practice, I think this is a small effect. First, CaCO3 is essentially insoluble at pH 8. Second, the ability to buffer will decrease with time as the grains become coated with bacterial biofilms. It probably helps a bit, but high water quality is probably much more important.
 
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