Crushed Coral/Live plants?

[Ash]

I 've always used gravel in my tanks or gravel with live plants and I decided I want to try something new. I've never used crushed coral, so I wanted to try it out on my new 30 gallon tank is there anything different you have to do? and is there anything different you would need to do with live plants ??

 

[sohfatfish]

I dont think it will work cos crushed coral buffers Ph and most plants need a lower Ph to thrive.I haven tried tho so maybe someone else might like to comment?

 

[HarleyK]

I dont think it will work cos crushed coral buffers Ph and most plants need a lower Ph to thrive.

It also hardens your water (as a result of the buffering)

HarleyK

 

[Ash]

cool okay thanks, the ph for the fish in the tank isnt going to be a prob. I just didnt know if it would affect live palnts if decided to use them, Thanks!

 

[shovelnose]

I use florabase made by redsea in my planted tank and i couldn't kill a plant if i wanted to.

 

[Tucc185]

About the crushed coral, I know someone who had unbelievable success with planted tanks and always used CC as a substrate. It brought his pH up a little, but never over 7.2, and he was careful to buy plants that were more pH toleant, but the swords in that tank were amazing--the growth rate and the amount of babies his plants would put out always made me jealous. He kept livebearers like swordtails and platies in there, no CO2, PC lighting.