You can’t call a coral a plant or a stone. It is rather a group of animals. Coral is a combination of plants (algae) and animals (polyps). Polyps are known to have a great relationship with algae and they come together to form small calcium housings that create layers on each other. Also, polyps emit limestone (calcium carbonate) that you find on the dead shells of other polyps. Polyps can grow up to a foot long and they are invertebrates. Polyps keep themselves safe inside their homes and eat at night. Coral cannot produce their food. Coral is beautiful and serves a great benefit to our waters. A healthy coral looks brightly colored but dead corals are usually white. When corals are denied the required nutrients they need to survive, they die because they are a combination of plants and animals. The major cause of dead corals is the interaction of humans such as mining, digging of canals, pollution, blast fishing, and nets scraping under the seafloor.
So, you may be asking yourself the question, can I put dead coral in a freshwater tank? Yes, you can put dead coral in a freshwater tank but it will increase the hardness and PH level. But if the PH level of the water in your tank is low and you are looking for a way of increasing it, then you can add dead corals to it.
How to Introduce Dead Coral in a freshwater tank.
Introducing dead corals into a freshwater tank is not healthy for the fishes in there. It can increase the hardness and pH of your tank.
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If your freshwater tank is somewhat hard, adding the coral won’t be that bad. If you decide to use it but don’t want it to tamper with the water, coat the coral in a thin layer of epoxy before you put it in the tank.
Sure to the fact that corals are sharp, it can injure the fishes in your freshwater tank and this could give them bacterial infections.
How do you clean dead coral in a fish tank?
You should know how to clean dead coral in your fish tank so the water can be healthy for the fishes in it. There are two methods you can use to clean dead corals in your fish tank. Check them out.
Method 1
1. Take out pieces of dead coral from the fish tank. Ensure you take your time to remove them so that you don’t leave any left in the fish tank.
2. Put the dead corals in a plastic container that has enough tap water in it so it can fully cover the dead corals. Then, keep turning the dead corals several times so they can be relieved of any trapped air bubbles.
3. Pour a part of chlorine bleach that has no fragrance into five different parts of water. Then, allow the coral to soak for about 2 hours until it is clean. You can always pour more bleach into the water to reinforce the solution if you notice that the coral is still dirty after the first soaking.
4. Take out the coral from the bleach solution, throw the water away and rinse the coral very well under running tap water.
5. Repeat the process in step 2.
6. Pour 5ml of AquaLife Complete per 5 gallons of tap water to the container where the coral is in. Keep turning the coral after every 15 minutes for an hour so you remove air blockage and expose all the surfaces to the dechlorinating solution.
7. Let the coral out and allow it to air dry for at least 3 hours before you take it back to the fish tank.
Method 2
1. Repeat steps 1 to 5 in Method 1 above.
2. Put an airline with an airstone from an air pump under the container.
3. Pour 5ml of AquaLife Complete per 5 gallons of tap water to the container where the coral is in. Keep turning the coral after every 15 minutes for an hour so you remove air blockage and expose all the surfaces to the dechlorinating solution.
4. You can then put your coral to go back into the fish tank.
Can a dead coral come back to life?
A dead coral may look dead when you expose it to warm water. Most polyps decrease their size so they can enter their strong skeleton for protection as a way of surviving. If the weather conditions attain stability and the temperatures go back to normal, these polyps will come out of their shell and their tentacles will experience a regrowth. If the weather conditions keep fluctuating, your corals may find it difficult to survive. And once algae are no more present in coral as a result of rising sea temperatures, it may lead to its death.
Are there freshwater corals?
There are no freshwater corals. You can only find corals in seawater bodies and it due to certain things. There are two categories of corals, hard and soft corals. Hard corals need about 32 to 42 parts per thousand of salt to survive and you can’t find that in freshwater. Also, polyps that are responsible for creating corals cannot be found in freshwaters. Corals are best grown in warm-temperature water. Freshwaters are very cold and they don’t have the salt that corals need to survive. Polyps can be found in freshwaters and the exoskeleton of corals can get dissolved in freshwater because it doesn’t contain the required amount of minerals.
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How are hard corals created? Through the secretion of calcium carbonate from polyps. And calcium carbonate should always be in hard water. And by hard water, it means water that has plenty of minerals in it. And seawater is hard water. It has a hardness of about 6630 ppm while freshwater has a hardness of about 15-375 ppm. Can you see the difference between these two water bodies? This clearly shows why you can’t find corals in freshwater bodies. How is hard water related to the growth and survival of corals? You should know that if corals are not kept in hard water, they won’t be able to manufacture their calcium carbonate exoskeletons and this will lead to their death.
Conclusion
Now that you are aware of how live and dead corals work, you should be careful about how you introduce them into your freshwater tank.
Allow your corals to enjoy the hard water they love being in so they can survive. Don’t try to cause their death by forcing them into freshwater.
Corals are beautiful, you can help maintain their beauty by doing all you can to make them thrive in their ideal environment.