Seashells

[rthompson14]

Just picked up a bunch of seashells from a buddy who had them in a container....is it cool to just rinse them off in the sink and insert into SW tank? Do I need to treat the water with anything when I put these in? Just asking cause I dont wanna do anything to hurt my tank

 

[Tokalosh]

You are good to go PROVIDED the shells are not lacquered!
Also keep in mind that they will change color and will not look nice and clean in a few months time.

Tok

 

[Akshay]

Yup am with Tok... they don't stay nice and clean after a few months in the tank and things start colonizing on them.
I'd rather not put them in... but ur tank ur call. Cheers

 

[ddelozier]

if theyre sold as decorative pieces, odds are they've been coated with laquor or some other clear coat, which makes them unsuitable for aquarium use. If they were hand collected off some beach, the're probably fine after a good rinse. Rinse very very well. Buddy of mine didnt. He got a huge bowl of hand collected shells and such from his grandpa. He didnt think anything about it and started dropping them in his 75g tank. What he didnt factor in was his grandpa had em for 20+ years, and he was a 3pack a day smoker. you see where this is going? his tank crashed and most of his fish died before i could rescue them. even in a QT with aged SW and good filtration, most died anyways. Nicotine is toxic to most animals.

 

[Mike Johnson]

I would clean them in bleach water.

 

[rthompson14]

I have bleach at home, ill do bleach water. Yeh the lady said she hand picked these off the beach in florida like 25 years ago...and same scenario she is a smoker too. good thing u mentioned that. I will rinse thoroughly and then let soak in bleach water then few more rinses. Its mainly this really huge conche shell I want to put in there.

I didnt think anything would grow on them cause whenever i see pictures of seashells in SW tanks they are always clean, prolly all just fresh additions thats why.

Does it matter if my tank is still cycling and has ammonia?

 

[ddelozier]

if you want clean seashells in your tank, you need to get Resin cast shells....any carbonite based shells will grow coraline algae if nothing else. any small pits or holes or crevaces and you'll end up with worms, snails, etc all over it. I dont advocate doing it, but its an option. If you get reef safe resin casts, they're not much different that acrylic, which is reef safe.