Crushed coral substrate for snail tank

[Otter]

I was Thinking of doing a snail tank with fine crushed coral substrate for a new fresh water snail tank.

Is there any problems with using this for my tank?

Anything special I need to do to use it rinse extra well or boil it?

Thanks,

John

 

[Lupin]

Shouldn't be an issue. I use crushed corals myself for the brig tank which also contains the ramshorns, MTS and the remaining nerites that I could not remove to another tank.

 

[blue2fyre]

I don't see why not. I know that crushed coral is often used in african cichlid tanks. I have a layer of crushed sea shells under the gravel in my 5 gallon. I just rinsed them very well.

 

[msjinkzd]

Crushed coral is a great choice for a snail only tank. My only issue is its color- the light color shows the wastes and any algae growth.

 

[toddnbecka]

I mixed some black gravel with the crushed coral for my 10 gallon shrimp/snail tank. Shrimp are long gone, tank now houses Endler's, a marmokreb, and snails. None of them seem to mind either.

 

[stezatois]

i use crushed coral in my snail tank too.

 

[dixienut]

i used sugar sized aragonite which seems too fine for them , but i had it on hand

 

[bazil323]

The only problem that I could see is if you are also going to house fish. And that is only if you don't acclimate them to the higher pH. The crushed coral with naturally raise the pH to about 8.

I've got a handful in my invert tank for the extra calcium, and I will be adding some to the filter (in a media bag) to my backup filter on the community tank as I have added nerites to it.

No reason to do anything special. Just rinse it out really well or you will get a cloud of white "dust" everytime you do a gravel vac. Someone suggested using a pillowcase to rinse sand, which worked awesome for me, and I would think that you could do the same with crushed coral or gravel or any other substrate.

 

[Sounguru]

I mixed mine 50/50 with sand blasting sand and it works great....

 

[toddnbecka]

Crushed coral won't rasie the pH any higher than 7.6, you need aragonite or baking soda to get it up to 8 or higher.