Crushed Coral: Powdered or Chunky?

[cd216513]

Hi, I was thinking of adding some crushed coral to my FW aquarium to help raise my alkalinity. Are you supposed to crush the coral into a powder or just into chunks? I was going to put it into a media bag and place it in my filter. If it's down to a powder it would obviously escape the bag and would probably make the water cloudy, so I wasn't sure if that's the correct way or if you put chunks in there to slowly dissolve it into the water.

 

[Crepe]

Just put the crushed coral into a mesh bag and into your filter. No crushing necessary.

 

[cd216513]

Well I was planning on crushing it myself and wasn't sure how fine to crush it down to

 

[Smitty]

If it is going in your filter then I don't think you need to crush it at all. The only time you want to do that is if it is in the tank as the substrate... then detris and other stuff can get trapped in the pockets and create problems.

So, you should be good having it not crushed in a bag in your filter. Other than that, I don't know how well it works

 

[cd216513]

Ok so I just put the whole branches in the bag and set them in the filter? I'll see what affect it really has Any thing will help me at this point, my buffer is pretty low

 

[HN1]

What makes you want to adjust your alkalinity?

 

[cd216513]

It's low and my ph keeps trying to drop on me

 

[HN1]

How low? What fish do you have? Do they seem "off" in any way?

 

[mgamer20o0]

also have to test your kh gh and also tested your tap?

 

[cd216513]

my total hardness is moderate but my alkalinity is below 80 ppm. I'm trying to figure out why my mollies aren't mating, and I think the alkalinity might be why.

 

[jsoong]

Crushing increases the surface area, making it faster to dissolve into the water.

I think it would be reasonable to crush it to the same size as the commercial crushed coral at the lfs ... those are around 1/2" in size.

 

[cd216513]

Cool, thanks for the tip. Before I actually go adding this, can anyone else think of any other reason why the mollies wouldn't be mating? I do regular water changes and keep an eye on all parameters, and I don't know what else the problem could be.

 

[Crepe]

They aren't old enough or they are too old.

 

[cd216513]

Well the gold dust molly I bought pregnant but she never got pregnant while she's been in my tank. She's pretty small, but I guess she could be old... Do you think I bought her when she was on her last pregnancy?

 

[Crepe]

If she just dropped fry without problem I don't think it's either. How long have you had them?

 

[cd216513]

the gold dust molly I've had for a few months now. I also have females - creamsicle 1 month, female silver about 3 months, and a dalmation and balloon molly that are the oldest of them all. The males are one balloon molly and a black molly. I got the balloon mollies at the same time so that male is older as well and the black molly I've had for two months. So unless I'm getting them from the pet store really old... but that still wouldn't explain the gold dust molly.