I bought some Wonder Shell for the snails and shrimp in my tank. But I thought I should check before throwing it in.
Does anyone use Wonder Shell?
- Thread starter sharkweek178
- Start date
What's your current water hardness, and what creatures are in the tank you'd put it in?
What is it ? Never heard of it .
As far as I can tell, it's calcium and other elements to toughen snail shells. It would work well here in my softwater, if I weren't so intent on crushing snails. It would dissolve better in soft conditions. But it would cause problems for my fish, since I only have one hardwater fish.
It must be something like a cuttlebone that parakeets sharpen their beaks on .
Yeah. My mother-in-law uses that to sharpen her tongue.
TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
I have softer water and I keep smails and shrimp just fine. The only tanks where I have some issues are the ones where I have these critters and the tank is heavily planted. There simply is not enough minerals etc. in the tank for it all. Mysolutions is I add a small amount of Seachem Stability to the couple of tanks I have where it is needed.
I actually do it all by eye. The plants actually alert me to deficits before the shrimp or snails do. My goals is to increase the needed minerals etc. without doing so to the point where it is causing big bumps in hardness/TDS.
I also used an RO/DI unit for years for my Altum angel tank. I had stained water in the tank and used catappas, alder cones and rooibos tea for this. Because one cannot test with the traditional colormetric kits when the water is tea stained I have a continuous digital monitor on the tank which gives me numbers for conductivity or TDS, Temp. and pH. Because I need so lower hardness and pH I also sometimes need to add muriatic acid to help push the pH down.
It took me many years in the hobby before I felt comfortable trying to do major parameter changes to my tap water in order to keep wild Altums.
Messing with one's tap water parameters is not an easy task to to in a stable fashion. It is much harder to soften and lower pH than it is to do the reverse.
Next, years ago I had some exchanges with Carl who sells the wonders shells. He is quite good on some things and not so good on others, just like most of us. I bought my UV unit from him but I have never wanted the shells. I use crushed coral and occasionally Stability when needed.
I actually do it all by eye. The plants actually alert me to deficits before the shrimp or snails do. My goals is to increase the needed minerals etc. without doing so to the point where it is causing big bumps in hardness/TDS.
I also used an RO/DI unit for years for my Altum angel tank. I had stained water in the tank and used catappas, alder cones and rooibos tea for this. Because one cannot test with the traditional colormetric kits when the water is tea stained I have a continuous digital monitor on the tank which gives me numbers for conductivity or TDS, Temp. and pH. Because I need so lower hardness and pH I also sometimes need to add muriatic acid to help push the pH down.
It took me many years in the hobby before I felt comfortable trying to do major parameter changes to my tap water in order to keep wild Altums.
Messing with one's tap water parameters is not an easy task to to in a stable fashion. It is much harder to soften and lower pH than it is to do the reverse.
Next, years ago I had some exchanges with Carl who sells the wonders shells. He is quite good on some things and not so good on others, just like most of us. I bought my UV unit from him but I have never wanted the shells. I use crushed coral and occasionally Stability when needed.
Last edited:
OP
OP
Stability or Equilibrium?
Uberhoust
Fish Herder
It is a set of minerals like equilibrium pressed into a shell shape. They slowly dissolve into the water increasing the GH and KH. In my opinion I prefer to use something like Equilibrium where I can control the target GH and KH. You have no control over how fast they change the water parameters, this could with some water change cycles result in a yoyo'ing of the dissolved mineral content of the water.
OP
OP
I thought it was something that snails could eat. I'm not going to use this. I don't want to mess with my water parameters.
Doesn't the water itself sort of regulate that? I add CaribSea Rubblezone to my 75 gallon and to my shrimp tank (I have very soft water) and it seems like it dissolves just enough to "balance" the amount of calcium in the tank? I'm not sure that's real, but that's what I thought. Kind of like- the water will only absorb so much at a time...
TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
I failed to mention in my above edited post that I use another other thing in relation to Calcium for snails and shrimp. The crushed coral I mentioned I will just drop some into the tank. But I also use some foods which contain extra calcium which I feed in tanks with shrimp and opr assassin snails. The thing about this food is that Ancistrus as well as other bottom feeders will also eat it.
Ken's Premium Mini Vegetable Sticks with Calcium
Ken's Premium Mini Vegetable Sticks with Calcium
Uberhoust
Fish Herder
Yes it does, but the rates are important. It also depends on how often and how much water you change. After a water change the GH and KH will not be in equilibrium with the "stone" and the minerals will start dissolving at a greater rate driving the GH and KH up. The result is that the GH and KH will be lowest immediately after a water change and highest just before the water change. If the amount of variation between these extremes is small then it doesn't matter but if they are large, it can pose a real threat to the wellbeing of the fish. Slower dissolving materials will reduce this effect but also have less effect on the amount of hardness desired in the tank. Longer times between water changes will increase the amount of hardness increase in the water but lead to more drastic hardness drops on water change days. This might be one of the cases where large frequent changes could do more harm than good.
If you have really soft water and you want hard water, then you will get more consistent hardness if you pre-mix your replacement water to the desired hardness. If you are looking to have a bit of a pH buffer then a slower dissolving substance like coral or limestone might be better because they don't have the ability to drive up the hardness quickly but still can provide some buffering for low pH. Wonder Shells dissolve pretty quickly ( in relative terms ie faster than most other amendments to the water but still slowly), that mass ends up as hardness in the water.
Weco wonder shell is not supposed to dissolve rapidly and is not a food supplement. The shell can be removed when target hardness is reached. So you could float one in your filter from time to time to balance your water.
But. This product seems to be targeting soft water with both low GH and KH... If your GH is already at a good range, I would only use a product that target KH and add it only to maintain my target concentration. Without tempering with GH.
There are food supplement that provides Calcium Carbonate and they also partially dissolve in water. And they are formulated to not affect GH.
But. This product seems to be targeting soft water with both low GH and KH... If your GH is already at a good range, I would only use a product that target KH and add it only to maintain my target concentration. Without tempering with GH.
There are food supplement that provides Calcium Carbonate and they also partially dissolve in water. And they are formulated to not affect GH.
OP
OP
I just ordered some of that. I'll bet I could feed it to my grindal worms too.
Similar threads
Most reactions
-
364 -
233 -
220 -
199 -
161 -
144 -
131 -
115 -
101 -
96 -
93 -
91 -
88 -
86 -
83