Wonder Shells~Good or No?

[Arizonagrace]

Does anyone have opinions/experience with using wonder shells? From what I have read, they are good to use in tanks. I am interested in my molly, sword, and guppy tanks. It also says you can use them on betta tanks.

Anything you can tell me would be great. Want some advice before ordering/trying.

 

[swede]

what do you expect the shells to do for the fish?

 

[sostoudt]

it seems like they just control the ph and hardness of the water, a buffer or switch of substrate could do basically the same thing.


it does say it adds trace elements but doesnt eleborate very much.
personally i would just use prime and a seachem fresh trace( never used it but i trust seachem products, and it probably adds more trace elements too).
http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/FreshTrace.html
i would check your ph too the shell probably buffers the tank to around 7.0 your water may be close to that already.

 

[swede]

basically it seems that this magic potion claim is doing nothing more than what some dead coral would do. calcium bicarbonate is a mineral that is found in shells from the ocean. it works as a buffer the same way antacids work in your stomach. the acid eats away at the calcium bicarbonate, which breaks down and neutralizes the acid, making the water alkaline. as the acid starts to show up again, the shells regulate the ph through the same process and therefore keep the ph pretty stables. As for the minerals, i doubt you would get much more than what any shells would contain. Using prime and crushed coral would do the same thing

 

[Arizonagrace]

I already use prime, and I added crushed coral (about 4 cups to 30 gallon tank). And in the molly tank I have the shimmy block, so I guess that is good enough Just wanted to make sure I wasn't skipping something great for the fishies.

 

[swede]

the only other thing i could suggest is add some salt if it is only mollies in the tank