Adding beach rock to a freshwater tank?

spoonsofspinach

spoonsofspinach

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Dec 14, 2005
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My friend gave me two rocks she gleaned from a North Atlantic beach this morning. The rocks have holes in them in which my guppy fry can hopefully find shelter from hungry larger guppies. She used to have a freshwater 10 gal. and added some Pacific Ocean beach rock with no problems. She boiled the rocks, completely changed the water and then boiled them again before adding them to the tank. I would like to add the rocks as they are aesthetically pleasing as well. However, I don't want to mess up a good thing and screw up my 20 gal. community tank. Is it safe to just boil them a couple of times or should I do something extra?
 
Depends what the rocks are made of. Put them in a bucket of RO water, leave them for a while, and then test the water if you're worried about it. With guppy's it probably wouldn't be a problem.
 
Ummmm....what's RO water?
 
you don't need RO (reverse osmosis) water to test these rocks. take a bucket of your tap water and, using both hot and cold taps, make the temperature the same as it's going to be in your tank. then take the ph of the water. thoroughly rinse the rocks and add them to the bucket. leave them there for 24-48 hours. warm the water in the bucket with a tank heater to the same temperature as before and take the ph again. if it's the same as it was before you added the rocks, you're good to go.
 
RO water would give you a more accurate result, but he's right, it's not necessary. Being in the reef community for so long I suppose I've grown accustomed to most people having it.
 
Actually, I think I do use RO water for both of my tanks anyway. I always use bottled water as my home well is too high in iron. I get my water bottles filled at the local hardware store water thingo and I believe it advertises as using the reverse osmosis process.

Thanks for the help all. :smile:
 
spoonsofspinach said:
Actually, I think I do use RO water for both of my tanks anyway. I always use bottled water as my home well is too high in iron. I get my water bottles filled at the local hardware store water thingo and I believe it advertises as using the reverse osmosis process.
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Yes, then you use RO water anyway, and that's great. Don't listen to anybody who trys telling you don't need buffering additives for Rift Lake's.

I need to use RO water for all my tanks too. Living in Vancouver, my water is extremely soft and pure to begin with, but contains too much copper and possibly other metals that are toxic to my starfish and crabs, but great for human consumption. Not sure what it does to my freshwater friends but it can't be that good. Our water strips these metals from the pipes as it travels to my apartment. I used to buy RO (no DI) by the 5-gallon bottle from the supermarkets, but then found some really well-priced RO-DI units on eBay. Great investment.
 
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pure RO water is an unsatisfactory environment for aquatic life. the process of making RO water removes virtually ALL the minerals, cations, anions ... the entire chemistry of water (except of course the 2 H's and an O) which fish require for metabolic function. fish cannot exist in pure RO water and will die off sooner rather than later if maintained that way. they make things like "RO-Right" which adds back the necessary chemical components.
 
My betta has been existing in this water since February and my 20 gal. has been sucessful since I set it up in October. The only fatalities, so far, are guppy fry who get eaten. I will look for the RO Right just to be on the safe side.
 
Omega said:
Yes, then you use RO water anyway, and that's great. Don't listen to anybody who trys telling you don't need buffering additives for Rift Lake's. . .
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That's right, you don't need them.

You can get the same effect and a more stable environment for the fish by using crushed coral and/or aragonite.

Why would you want to add chemicals to your tank, a temporary fix at best, when you can raise it with coral/aragonite?

Roan
 
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