fishdude360

can i put a seashell in my freshwater tank, i did not buy it

bassbonediva

I've been told no. Apparently they change the pH of your water too drastically. That's just what I've been told though (got yelled at on another forum for having a few seashells in one of my small betta tanks when I was still running them).

Butterfly

Depends on how many and how big the tank is
The shells will eventually dissolve and this is what raises the pH BUT if it's just a few in say a 20g or larger and your doing water changes as you should(at least 25% each week) and substrate vacuums it most likely won't raise the pH. The reason being you are removing the dissolved bits faster than it's dissolving when you do your water changes and substrate vacuums.
I keep shells, barnacles and Texas Holey Rock in my Shellie tank and the Ph is the same as the rest of my tanks BECAUSE I am fanatic about doing water changes. Hope that helps
If you stuff the tank full yes eventually it will change it but it will do it slowly.
carol

chunkdaddy

Good thing I read this discussion. I've got a 5 gallon tank with about 8 seashells in it. What a dork!!!

aquarium dunce

I would be careful. I put 2 shells in my 20 gallon and got overrun with snails. Someone told me to make sure to boil the shells first before putting them in the tank.

Butterfly

Unless the shells came from another tank where they might have snail eggs on them I wouldn't worry about it. Just putting shells in won't cause a snail problem. Over feeding is one of the major problems of a snail population explosion.
Carol