Crushed Coral for substrate?

[jtricer1973]

Hey guys, I just setup up my little 5 gallon bowfront that was collecting dust in the closet and have a question. At the time I had a bag of crushed coral on hand and decided to use it for the substrate. I seeded it with some sand from my 46 gallon bow front and some Garf grunge I had ordered for the 46 gallon as well. I have about 4 pounds of live rock in it also from my established 46 gallon. Someone raised a question about the crushed coral substrate. They said they had used it once and had problems with high nitrates and I guess attributed it to the crushed coral. Do you think this is correct. I don't quite understand why it would be but maybe someone could shed some light on this.

 

The cycle has just about finished and took about a week. Everything I used was from an established reef tank except for the crushed coral. The ammonia spiked about 4 days ago.

ammonia = 0

nitrites = 0

PH = 8.2

nitrates = 10

 

I haven't done a water change yet. I just got done testing the water. If the crushed coral is a problem I would rather change it now and re-cycle the tank than get it stocked and then run into problems.

 

Thanks guys

[Swedereefer]

The problem with crushed coral as substrate is that it traps detritus which turns into nitrate, sand don't do this to the same degree, since the detritus is collected on the sand instead of in it and is easy to siphon out or to filter out.

[seabass]

+1

 

Although it is possible to use crushed coral, you'll need a gravel vac to keep it clean. It will be so much easier if you replace it now with some fine grain aragonite sand. You'll still siphon out some debris during water changes, but it will be a lot easier.