Crushed coral is a problem waiting to happen

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FishPish

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May 31, 2010
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The only reason to have crushed coral is for certain species to build little shell huts. Its relatively useless if you don't have a species that uses it.
 

FishPish

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May 31, 2010
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Crushed Coral possible use.

I thought maybe a small pile of crushed coral could be put near a filter intake if you have fine sand in the tank or an area of high current. The crushed coral will hold the sand down and help filter too. Just a theory. Would use it conservatively though as the burrowing species don't like it.
 

FishPish

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May 31, 2010
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I put a few pieces of crushed coral by the filter intake and my ph went up a bit. The people at http://www.exoticaquatic.com/index.html say that your ph will rarely drop below 8.0 with crushed coral. I don't know what would happen if you overdid it on the crushed or if it doesn't matter. In my case my PH increased by .4 after I added some shells and crushed coral.
 

Amphiprion

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Feb 14, 2007
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That mostly only applies to freshwater habitats, as the solubility of calcium carbonate isn't usually high enough to have any real effect on the pH of seawater.
 

chrisstager

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Jul 25, 2010
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Hello,
A lot of lfs try to sell us crushed coral to use as a substrate in our marine tanks. It's not good it acts as giant nitrate factory and really causes some long term issues with your tanks health. You would be far better served if you would use sand or even a bare bottom.

There are several reasons that it causes problems like, it catches all the detritus in your tank, food, feces, dead plants etc. It's more or less like having a kitchen sponge in the bottom of your tank that you never change! :thud:
Your infaunal critters be they fish,inverts etc. have a very difficult time in moving through it and they can't get to the waste material to eat it.

It also won't compact enough to form an anaerobic area to allow denitrification and the ultimate removal of waste as atmospheric nitrogen. In short it's not a good idea to add to marine tanks in quantity.

IME it probably causes more people to leave the hobby than any other reason!

Hopefully other members will post their experiences to assist new hobbiest.
hth
chris
Wow that explains alot. I'm new at this marine thing and am having a nightmare of a time getting my nitrate lower than 20. And I have 40 lbs of cc in my tank. I do a water change and it doesn't drop been driving me nuts. Thanks for the info. Was thinking to going with the fiji pink sand my only concerns are it would get sucked up while syphoning water, any problems with this?
 

Haydn24

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Jun 28, 2010
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Does the sand type of CC have these same issues? Because I think your referring to the larger sized substrate? Is this correct? :)
 

mhollibush

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Dec 24, 2010
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ok - this thread is about a month old from people posting - so I guess I will start it back up.

When purchasing LS - where does one go any purchase it - I have heard the the LFS sand is not what you want to purchase - but rather someone that has extra sand that has came from a tank.

What is the benefit?
why is the "bagged" sand a bad idea?
is the bagged live sand from the LFS realy live?

what is a good price for LS
 

Haydn24

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Well just an update... I'm using fairly fine pure crushed coral. Have not had any issues but I think this is due to stuff not being able to fall through the substrate, instead it sits on top or never gets there due to good circulation...
 

Ace25

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Oct 3, 2005
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ok - this thread is about a month old from people posting - so I guess I will start it back up.

When purchasing LS - where does one go any purchase it - I have heard the the LFS sand is not what you want to purchase - but rather someone that has extra sand that has came from a tank.

What is the benefit?
why is the "bagged" sand a bad idea?
is the bagged live sand from the LFS realy live?

what is a good price for LS
"Live Sand" from the LFS (normally CaribSea Arag-Alive) in a bag is simply dead sand with water and some bacteria added and called "Live". It isn't truly live as you won't have anywhere near the amount of life in the bag as you would from sand taken out of a running tank. So it is best to use dead sand and use some live rock and in a month or so just from the live rock your sand will become live. Where the "using sand from an established tank" comes in is to give your sand an extra little bump start into turning live. You only need about 1 cup worth of sand out of someones tank if you go that route, but with good live rock it really isn't needed. Hope that answers all your questions.

Oh.. and crushed coral is great... when put in a Calcium Reactor. ;)
 
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