Red Sea's Coral Sand - Has anyone tried it? Good for pH buffering?

[tyrantt23]

If a post like this has been done before, sorry, but the search engine isn't working at the moment... :huh:

I have a golden mystery snail with a betta in an Eclipse 12 which is currently cycling. I was told that crushed corals would be good for buffering my pH (its at 6.0 right now), and adding calcium to the water (I'm also adding Kent's Liquid Calcium daily). So the question is, would Red Sea's Coral Sand work for my needs? If so, how do I do it? Just add it on top of the mechanical filter where the water goes through? I would need to wash it first, right?

Thanks! :dance:

 

[ChicoRaton]

The coral sand or any crushed coral will cause your Kh (measure of water's buffering capacity) to slowly rise, but if you do a water change with regular water this will cause the ph to fluctuate. Better to keep things stable than to keep messing around with them. Fluctuations are disasterous. "less than ideal" pH is not. Do you know the KH(carbonate hardness) of your water? If you don't have a test kit have your LFS test it for you. Chances are there is enough in the water for the snail straight out of the tap. If you want to use the crushed coral, putting it in a mesh bag in the filter (nylons work well) is the best way to do it.

Why are you adding Kent's liquid calcium? That is a product for saltwater reef tanks. It should also cause your pH to skyrocket, so I'm a little confused abotu the 6.0 reading.. If I'm not mistaken it has a lot of calcium hydroxide in it. (Edit: My mistake, it is calcium chloride. haha, sorry.) The snail needs calcium in the water but I'd just toss in a couple of real sea shells, do regular water changes and leave everything else alone. The snail will "eat" the shells to get all the calcium carbonate he needs.