Crushed coral

[Jtrain]

I just planted my tank and have 1.5 WPG. I have river pebble subtrate and just ordered the Plant Gro Natural CO2 System. Does anyone know where I can get some crushed coral to add to my take to buffer against the expected ph drop from my CO2? Any links would be helpful.

 

[Jchillin]

You can easily pick up CC at your lfs. If they have SW stock, they can probably give you some from an established tank. If not, you would have to buy a bag...usually sold in 10lb bags or more.

 

[BrianNY]

Right. CC is what's used as the substrate for SW tanks.

 

[Purrbox]

Also if you don't need a lot of Crushed Coral, some LFS sell small pieces of dead coral which would allow you to just buy a handful, instead of having a huge bag sitting around that you only used a handful out of it.

 

[malkore]

whoa, hold on thar'....

what is the current Kh level of your tank? meaning, do you even NEED to raise your buffering capacity.

no matter what you do, CO2 will absolutely lower your pH. If it doesn't lower pH, then it's not dissolving into the water, and thus is a wasted effort.

You only need 3dKh, less than 50ppm of carbonate hardness to adequately buffer a tank for CO2 injection.

 

[Jtrain]

O.K. I went out today and bought some crushed coral and 3 bags of smaller media gravel for my plants. I also bought a KH and GH test kit. Needless to say adding these couded up my water. I did a 25% water change after I was done and these are my reading:

PH: 7.2
Nitrates: 10.0
GH: 53.7
KH: 71.6


I suppose that it will take a little bit of time for the CC to raise my KH. I used Chuck's planted aquarium calculator and found out that my CO2 is 8 ppm. This is before I install my Plant Gro CO2 Natural System. Do these numbers seem good? I think I am on the right path to learning what is needed for my planted tank. BTW My tank is 20 gallon and I have 1.5 WPG.