Coral question

[jakeandwendy]

my sister has some shells and a piece of coral she got from the beach at galveston tx that i think would look sharp in our fw community tank. i know to wash them thoroughly (actually plan on bleaching them). what i was curious about was will they change my water parameters? the coral piece was an actual live coral at one time and the other shell looks like a small conch shell. if anyone has any experience with these please feel free to chime in! figured you saltwater guys would know about it. i'm mostly concerned about it either taking my ph too far either way and if its okay for my raphael catfish. any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Zer0]

If it's just the skeleton of the coral and there are no bits of flesh still left on it, you can definitely use it in your FW tank. My mom used to have a few bits of coral skeleton in our FW tank when i was younger.

However, i would advise bleaching it. That's what she did as well, and it would be best for you to do so as well. Not really worried about decaying from coral flesh, but what contaminants, if any, could still be on it, that would change your water chemistry, or worse, kill your tankmates.

 

[melosu58]

You should be OK. The only problem is that the shells if down on the substrate will trap food and waste and produce excessive nutrients that will cause nuisance algea problems.

 

[jakeandwendy]

okay thanks a lot! i'm going to bleach them and maybe lightly boil them to remove any build ups of sediment etc. and yes they're completely fossilized! i clean my substrate pretty good during pwcs, which is daily since i'm cycling wih fish(d#*nit!). i'm also going to add either some loachs or algae eaters once i'm cycled so a little more algae probably wouldnt hurt. again thanks!

 

[jakeandwendy]

Update on the Coral

wow figured i'd update. put the coral and shell in the tank. took my ph the next day and it was 8.0! from 6.8 the day before. nothing else was different parameter-wise just the ph. i took it out and did a couple pwcs and now its back to normal. any thoughts? i sterilized them both, bleach, then lightly boiled than rinsed and dried again. is this weird?