Sea shells in a fresh water aquarium

[larrymull]

Hi Guys,

I've just been down in Tasmania and picked up some cool shells on the beach and was thinking tying some moss on to them would like pretty cool in my shrimp tank. I'm just wondering if I can use beach shells in the tank and there wouldn't be any side effects?

[jayc]

Sea shells are made of calcium carbonate.

The side effect is that it will leach calcium and increase TDS.

You will need constant monitoring to ensure it doesn't cause your water parameters to move outside of the shrimp's ideal requirements.

And it will eventually mean constant water changes to rectify the imbalance in TDS.

 

The smaller your tank, the more impact it will have.

 

It might not be an issue if you have a large tank and only add a few shells.

Also not an issue if you have very soft water, and want to raise it a bit.

[larrymull]

Sounds all too hard for me, might just keep them for my son.

[jayc]

Wise choice. 

[northboy]

I will through a spanner in the works.

 

It all depends on the water you start with, what works for one will not work for another in another area!!!

 

For me up here, my water is like rain water, so I use Coral and shell to lift the TDS and in turn the PH.

 

So Know the water you start with and work from there.

 

In a nut shell, some have water like rain water and for others it is liquid concrete (poor buggars), so knowing your starting  point and what water you have is number 1.

 

Bob

[northboy]

OH forgot to add to, some critters are more forgiving than others to.

 

Bob

[kizshrimp]

Larrymull, for the record if you're in the eastern suburbs you probably have very soft water as Bob describes. Cherry shrimp are among the "more forgiving" critters while Taiwan Bees are not. 

[larrymull]

Yep Kizshrimp I'm in inner east of melb, still all sounds a bit tricky for a piece of shell

[kizshrimp]

I recommend staying in your comfort zone with this type of thing. The good thing about water conditioning products is the instructions, while the alternatives like shell grit are totally uncontrolled as JayC pointed out. I'll bet Bob has a good feel for how much coral to add but that's not for everyone. Me included :)

[northboy]

LOL, the more coral you add the higher the reading. What works for me may not work for others and what works for you may not work for others either, its hard but worth the effort.

 

Knowing your water that you start with and what you want to keep, will go a long way to being successful with anything,

 

Not a lot to do with the topic, but putting the spanner in there again.

 

The good fish farms up here try lots of species and stay with what works in there water, but there is always exceptions, one farm that breeds many 100s of thousands of Neons also produces lots of Electric Yellow in the same boar water??? total opposites of the water scale, works for them big time. Fishmosy AKA Ben has seen the operation

 

Bob

[kizshrimp]

Love those spanners, wow that's a surprise Bob! Do you know is their bore water hard or soft? Curious which species is out of its comfort zone... 

 

btw If I'm keeping africans or other hard alkaline water stuff I don't mind using white rock, coral sand or those type of substrates. With soft water stuff I much prefer to dose to the right levels manually. 

[northboy]

Hi Kriso

 

Not sure and will ask for you, the species list is big for the amount of people working there, 3 and some times 4, They do a lot here is a few.

 

Rams

many Tetras

Angles

Rainbows of many species

Bristle nose

Platys

Sword Tails

many more to

 

So there is a lot of fish out of there comfort zone, but the good thing about most of the common species we keep, the are domestic now and way out of there zone so exact water is a thing of the past.

 

There is photos of the farm in one of mine of Fishmosy AKA Bens threads somewhere, have a look its a big farm.

 

One of the amazing sights is to walk up to a pond about 2.5mts across and 600mm deep roughly and it can have 12,000 Neon's in it, or one that is 1.5mt deep and it can have 3 or 4 hundred LARGE Angles in it, 5 to 7cm+ long Angles, I took photos but they look like 3cm fish nothing to give prospective

.

 

Bob