Fossilized Coral Rock For Ph/kh Problems

[uberleslie]

So I picked up a new product at my LFS that I hadn't seen before. It's called "Reef Rock" and says it's "Real Fossilized Coral Rock."

Packaging says:

- Ideal for Marine and Hardwater Aquaria

- Great for Reptiles too

- Environmentally responsible (Collected on land from ancient reef deposits).

- Helps maintain proper pH

- Encourages the growth of water purifying bacteria

- Perfect substrate for coral and Coraline algae growth

- Clean and pure, not chemical or bleach treated

- Directions: Rinse with fresh water and place in tank

Made by CaribSea

Anyone familiar with this product?

I've heard of using crushed coral for pH/KH problems, but never actual fossilized coral. Basically it contains 6 chunks of white coral, ranging in size from about fist-sized to open hand-sized. (About 6lbs total.)

I'm thinking of using it in my 20 gallon to see if it works. I'm hoping it will work somewhat and that I can add less Buff-it-Up, so as not to go through quite so much of it.

Any thoughts and opinions?

[koko]

Dont know to much about this stuff but did some reading and also found a post about it....

http://www.reefland.com/forum/tanks-filtra...ized-coral.html

[uberleslie]

Interesting. I think I'm going to experiment and try it out. Not that I haven't had success with Buff-it-Up, but maybe this will help me use less of it?

I'll post results. My experiment will begin with this weekend's water change!

[Erinaceus]

Nice find Koko, as uberleslie noted, it's an interesting post.

For those who are interested in this kind of stuff: a lot, and I do mean a lot of the sea shells you find on the beach are in fact fossils (ranging one to several million years of age), so don't be to amazed when they put the sticker 'fossilized' on something . As for fossilized coral, you can find than in a variety of soil types, with consistencies and compositions of equally large variation. Aside from that, it's usually not easy to dig up and prepare fossilized coral (for those palaeontology friendly people out there), because the fossil and the rock are almost indistinguishable from each other. As a result of this, if the fossilized coral is good to use for the given purpose, it's not because it's fossilized coral, but because it's the fossilized coral dug up from the right sediment layers.

[lynda441]

How's your experiment going Leslie?

I think the concern that article was focusing on, and what really should be the concern, is just like feeding live food, bringing in live critters from wild sources can also bring in bad bugs. So, the concern would be whether this fossilized coral rock is considered "live" rock. Of course putting it in fresh water should kill the bugs pretty quickly, but if the rock was put straight in with the fish, then that's when problems could start. If you soaked the rock first in fishless water, it should probably be okay as far as no more live marine critters.

[Trinket]

The only other thing I worry about is if the pieces are large they can be very spiky. For some reason Ive seen more spiked type ornaments etc in trop tanks than in with goldies, maybe goldies are more clumsy or something but I worry they will scrape themselves on jutting or scratchy pieces of coral.

[ichthius]

I use and swear by Caribsea. Most of their products are aragonite and do great things for pH kH and biofiltration.

I use their florida crushed coral which is actually mined aragonite in my box filters and oolitic sugar sand as a buffer in fluidized bed filters.

A liter of oolitic sand fluidized can keep thousands of gallons of water properly buffered, it's amazing stuff.

Here is my small reactor at home that keeps about 2,000 gallons of fish at about 7.8 pH with just a trickle of water flowing through it:

http://picasaweb.google.com/DavidLains/Ara...267926559064194

Best fishes

David

www....................com

[uberleslie]

Very interesting. I'm using a piece of fossilized coral in the tank with my little guys. There were a few pokey pieces in the bag, but I picked one of the smoother ones. I notice that it grows algae faster than anything else in the tank.

And I'm using CaribSea crushed coral in my 29. I've got 2 cups in the filter box, and 1 cup mixed in with my large gravel substrate. So far I haven't seen either fish ingest it.

In both tanks, I'm still using Buff-it-Up.

[Guest 5ivedrops]

I found some stuff this week that sounds similar. It's by a company named SunSun and it's just called coral sands (which is weird because there's no sand at all). It's basically small pieces (pinky finger sized) of fossilized coral and since I haven't been able to find crushed seashells I decided to try it. So far I have added a few pieces to my filter and a few under my gravel in bowls. I can't really tell yet but I think it's keeping the PH/kH stable and even more exciting is that it will provide more surface for beneficial bacteria.