Crushed coral & shells from the beach for tank?

[Florida8]

We were walking the beach and noticed how awesome the colors are in the piles of crushed shell. Would this be suitable for the new nano? What special cleaning would need to be done? Boil? Rinse? Soak? It's not a $ issue, just loved the colors and small shells and thought I would add it to
the LS.

Warmly,
Kimberly

 

[RocketSeason]

I just added some shells to my tank today. I boiled them for several minutes first to kill anything harmful.

Be very VERY careful. pollutants will kill everything in your tank.

 

[Corty]

If you boil them first, and make sure they don't have anything harmful on/in (eek!) them, I think you should be ok. I added a couple of shells I picked up myself..

 

[diverdown69]

Agreed. Boil the hell out of it all first. You may even use a strainer to get rid of any tag along sand. I tried that once...once...and I will never do it again. It turned my water a piss yellow color.

 

[jaiden]

keep in mind, boiling will kill living things, but not do that much for pollution of other sorts. lots of rinsing....