Acceptable to use salt water coral and rocks for freshwater?

[pitt420dude]

Background: My father got fed up with his 55 gal saltwater tank and gave me the whole set up. It is beautiful with a stand and a nice hood and plenty of beautiful coral. He completly cleaned out the tank meticulously so I could use it for freshwater, but my ph is high and remains that way. People at lfs told me to either go with cichlids (prefer a higher ph) or get rid of hte coral. I allready got rid of hte sand and put gravel in there.

THe coral is all dead, has been bleached and rinsed and soaked so there are no "live" rocks. THe coral is beautiful so i dont want to get rid of it but do not wish to commit to cichlids? ANy tips for bringing Ph down for good. I dont want to have to constantly tinker with it to lower it.
(I just replaced the substrate today but the lfs said the sand is what was making it high, is that correct?

It has really good filtration and a protein skimmer.

Here is my query:
Is it acceptable to have the coral in there and is that what is really making my ph high?

 

[Toirtis]

The coral will certainly be adding quite actively to your hardness and pH...it will limit your livestock choices.

 

[An t-iasg]

I wouldn't keep the coral or the sand (if it was SW or aragonite sand) in the tank. It may or may not actually raise the pH, but it will buffer (keep stable) the high pH you already have.

To test your tapwater, pour a glass of water and test the pH immediately. Now let this glass sit for about a day (this is called "aging") and test the pH again. When I do this, my pH is 8.2 out of the tap. After aging, it is 7.8. For my tankwater, I use a half-and-half mix of tap and RO water. After this aging/mixing, the pH is about 7.4.

Another method to naturally lower pH is to use driftwood. I put some driftwood in my 8.2 pH tapwater, in a bucket, and in about 5 days, the pH was 6.6.

Don't use any chemicals to lower your pH. It will usually rebound anyway, and that's very stressful on the fish.

Here's a good article on pH: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showquestion.php?faq=2&fldAuto=40

 

[pitt420dude]

Darn! I was afraid of that. Well I allready got rid of the sand, what if I simply let my water age adn mix in half RO water, do you think that will be suffficient? I want 3 angels, 4 gouramis, 1 or 2 bettas, 5-7 neon tetras, a red tail shark, a couple corys and 3 or 4 swordtails. DO you thnk this is toomuch for a 55 gal. Will any of the above be particularly susceptible to a high ph around the high 7s?

 

[Guest]

well i hate to break it but angels prefer slightly acidic pH you have to be careful with the gouramis, you can only have 1 betta, tetras and angels are bad combo angels are slow moving with flowing fins and tetras are fast and might fin nip im not too sure about the shark, cories are great, and same thing goes with the sword tails


sorry you kinda made a bad selection i hope you find some good fish you like


Angels and german blue rams are great together

so maybe you could make a cichlid tank

HTH

 

[Blucat]

If you don't want driftwood, water get a brita on tap filter system for your tapwater. It brings my tapwater from ph 8 to perfect 7. It is also betta fo drinking too!

 

[RoK]

well i hate to break it but angels prefer slightly acidic pH you have to be careful with the gouramis, you can only have 1 betta, tetras and angels are bad combo angels are slow moving with flowing fins and tetras are fast and might fin nip im not too sure about the shark, cories are great, and same thing goes with the sword tails[/acronym]

If it's female bettas he can get more than 1, but yes does have to watch out with the gouramis. I'd suggest only 1 male gourami per tank as they are usually more territorial. The redtail shark might not be a good idea either as they can get very territorial and should be kept with fish of similar size.

 

[whitetiger_CJ]

The coral will remain as a buffer for a long time. my crushed coral gravel in the freshwater started out as a cichlid tank, but now after 6 years, the ph is stable at 7.8, and all the water added is at 7. I thought the buffering capabilities would change over time, but it hasn't

 

[Guest]

so you can put corals in FW?

 

[RoK]

Yes, but it will make your pH higher.

 

[An t-iasg]

Not exactly, Rudy -- live corals won't live in freshwater, but as RoK says, coral does have certain uses in a FW tank. Crushed coral as a substrate or in the filter will help buffer FW tanks that need to keep a higher pH for fish such as African cichlids.

 

[Guest]

well, i didnt mean things like LR or a tank thats FW and FOWLR LOL i meant using dead coral in the tank as "Decor" and is it possible to fit African Cichlids in a 29 gal?

im asking this on every type of fish, just trying to "widen my horizon"

 

[mobiusnu]

tetras and angels are bad combo angels are slow moving with flowing fins and tetras are fast and might fin nip

I'd be more worried about the angels eating the neons. I've never heard of neons nipping angelfish.

 

[dream_bc]

I had 2 gouramis, 2 angel fish, 4 neon tetras and 2 corys (among other things) in my tank and the only problem I had was that my angles died. We replaced them, and they died again. We have narrowed it down to the hardness in our water as they didnt have a problem before we moved to this town.

I find angel fish to be not so tolerent of water outside of what they like so I would go for what you want but if you loose something (such as the angels) take it as a sign to not get it again. Do you have a second tank you can set up incase you get something aggresive?

I think getting fish is like a dog. You can get the idea of the animal based on its breed, but it still depends on the actual animal. I have had three blue gouramis and two of them were very peacefull and got along with everything and I had a third one that was a mean SOB. It wasnt until I had him that I understood why people told me they needed thier own space.


Thanks for the info on the drift wood, where we are moving back to we always had problems with pH !

 

[pitt420dude]

Thanks for the great advice everybody. My ph is around 7.6 which you all tell me is high for angels so I will get a piece of driftwood. Where do you all get it because my lfs doesnt have any and I really dont feel like curing my own. Is aquarium ready driftwood even available anywhere?

 

[An t-iasg]

I got my driftwood at DrsFosterSmith online. I got both a Malaysian and an African piece. The African piece really lowered the pH of my water. The Malaysian piece didn't leach tannins as long as the African piece did. Both pieces are beautiful.

Malaysian Driftwood

African Driftwood

 

[RoK]

I got all my driftwood at pet stores.

 

[jgc8fan]

When I changed mine over I got rid of the aragonite sand, the coral pieces are in the garden ($120 worth of garden deco. LOL), and the only thing I kept was a barnacle formation that my FW fish love to swim around in. I actually would have liked to keep the aragonite as a sub-substrate under my gravel, but I wasn't sure whether the years of salt that it was exposed to would leech into the aquarium, but even if it did I don't think the level would be very noticable. The coral will probably raise your ph as it leeches calcium into the water over time.