Chozon1

I was wondering if my substrate is cory safe. It says on the package that it is not soft belly safe. I figure this means I can't get Cories?

I actually have to get this substrate though, as my pH is below measuring, and this is some type of coral stuff that raises the PH and hardens the water a bit. It's still soft, but at least it's on the scale.

fish_newbie

If it says that its not soft belly safe i wouldn't risk it, you can always change to new substrates, people on here change things around all the time.

aquarist48

Good morning Chozon1. Did you completely remove the substrate that you had in your tank and replace it with crushed coral? You could always add the crushed coral into mesh bags and just place it in your tank or filter. Or you could use nylon hose (that has never seen soap) and place the coral in it and then into the tank.
Or, you could add substrate on top of the crushed coral would help as well.
I'm glad to hear that it is raising your pH levels as you wanted.

Ken

zowie717

you can always use arganite substraste. i used that along with crused coral. the argonite is little bigger than sand and it is belly safe and will raise your ph.

Chozon1

I thought about putting it in mesh bags, but I wasn't sure how much I would need to raise the PH and water hardness. Since it's a 10 gallon tank, I figured changing the substrate would save me more space in the end. So I pretty much all of it. I had black gravel in it before, so I mixed about a 1/3 of a pound of it into the white coral to make it look nice. Not enough to provide any sort of coverage though. The funny thing is, it's actually aragonite substrate, but has crushed shells mixed in. I didn't realize that normal aragonite would have worked until after I purchased this stuff.

I think I'll just pick a different type of fish to keep, then. Thank you all.