Nees Help With Cichlid Tank

[duanne hardy]

Hi I have collected crushed seashells and rock from the beach and would love to use it as gravell for my african ciclid tank.can it be used?how much shuld I use ?I roughly have a 66gallon tank. And would boiling it be sufficiant enough to clean it?

 

[Malawi MaD]

Seashells would be fine, can try vinigar on them to make sure there is no copper or other substances on the shells, boiling them will be fine. Which Africans you thinking as some like to dig and sift threw sand?.

 

[duanne hardy]

Iv got malawis and a frontosa .I'm busy fixing my big tank so want to put the shell gravel into the big tank. Do I use the vinigar before I boil them? Do I use vinigar alone or do I dilute it? I'm really keen to get the shell gravel into my tank but just don't want to make a mistake my fish are worth a lot to me can you please be specific with me

 

[Malawi MaD]

You could just boil them, the more i think about it, i doubt there will be copper in shells in all honesty so i think boiling them will get rid of anything that could cause hard to your fish. Malawi's like to dig a lot so not sure they will be able to do so with the shells as substrate but it should look good.

 

[duanne hardy]

Its crushed shell with tiny stone tho....I would like to send a pic but don't know how .its like grit the shells are all crushed with lots of small stone pebbles