Does anyone use Wonder Shell?

[sharkweek178]

I bought some Wonder Shell for the snails and shrimp in my tank. But I thought I should check before throwing it in.

 

[GaryE]

What's your current water hardness, and what creatures are in the tank you'd put it in?

 

[Back in the fold]

What is it ? Never heard of it .

 

[GaryE]

As far as I can tell, it's calcium and other elements to toughen snail shells. It would work well here in my softwater, if I weren't so intent on crushing snails. It would dissolve better in soft conditions. But it would cause problems for my fish, since I only have one hardwater fish.

 

[Back in the fold]

It must be something like a cuttlebone that parakeets sharpen their beaks on .

 

[gwand]

Yeah. My mother-in-law uses that to sharpen her tongue.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have softer water and I keep smails and shrimp just fine. The only tanks where I have some issues are the ones where I have these critters and the tank is heavily planted. There simply is not enough minerals etc. in the tank for it all. Mysolutions is I add a small amount of Seachem Stability to the couple of tanks I have where it is needed.

I actually do it all by eye. The plants actually alert me to deficits before the shrimp or snails do. My goals is to increase the needed minerals etc. without doing so to the point where it is causing big bumps in hardness/TDS.

I also used an RO/DI unit for years for my Altum angel tank. I had stained water in the tank and used catappas, alder cones and rooibos tea for this. Because one cannot test with the traditional colormetric kits when the water is tea stained I have a continuous digital monitor on the tank which gives me numbers for conductivity or TDS, Temp. and pH. Because I need so lower hardness and pH I also sometimes need to add muriatic acid to help push the pH down.

It took me many years in the hobby before I felt comfortable trying to do major parameter changes to my tap water in order to keep wild Altums.

Messing with one's tap water parameters is not an easy task to to in a stable fashion. It is much harder to soften and lower pH than it is to do the reverse.

Next, years ago I had some exchanges with Carl who sells the wonders shells. He is quite good on some things and not so good on others, just like most of us. I bought my UV unit from him but I have never wanted the shells. I use crushed coral and occasionally Stability when needed.

 

[sharkweek178]

I have softer water and I keep smails and shrimp just fine. The only tanks where I have some issues are the ones where I have these critters and the tank is heavily planted. There simply is not enough minerals etc. in the tank for it all. Mysolutions is I add a small amount of Seachem Stability to the couple of tanks I have where it is needed.

I actually do it all by eye. The plants actually alert me to deficits before the shrimp or snails do. My goals is to increase the needed minerals etc. without doing so to the point where it is causing big bumps in hardness/TDS.

I also used an RO/DI unit for years for my Altum angel tank. I had stained water in the tank and used catappas, alder cones and rooibos tea for this. Because one cannot test with the traditional colormetric kits when the water is tea stained I have a continuous digital monitor on the tank which gives me numbers for conductivity or TDS, Temp. and pH. Because I need so lower hardness and pH I also sometimes need to add muriatic acid to help push the pH down.

It took me many years in the hobby before I felt comfortable trying to do major parameter changes to my tap water in order to keep wild Altums.

Messing with one's tap water parameters is not an easy task to to in a stable fashion. It is much harder to soften and lower pH than it is to do the reverse.

Next, years ago I had some exchanges with Carl who sells the wonders shells. He is quite good on some things and not so good on others, just like most of us. I bought my UV unit from him but I have never wanted the shells. I use crushed coral and occasionally Stability when needed.

Stability or Equilibrium?

 

[Uberhoust]

It is a set of minerals like equilibrium pressed into a shell shape. They slowly dissolve into the water increasing the GH and KH. In my opinion I prefer to use something like Equilibrium where I can control the target GH and KH. You have no control over how fast they change the water parameters, this could with some water change cycles result in a yoyo'ing of the dissolved mineral content of the water.

 

[sharkweek178]

I thought it was something that snails could eat. I'm not going to use this. I don't want to mess with my water parameters.

 

[MuddyWaters]

Doesn't the water itself sort of regulate that? I add CaribSea Rubblezone to my 75 gallon and to my shrimp tank (I have very soft water) and it seems like it dissolves just enough to "balance" the amount of calcium in the tank? I'm not sure that's real, but that's what I thought. Kind of like- the water will only absorb so much at a time...