adding calcium for snail?

SinCrisis

Hey i was wondering if there was anythin i could add to my water to add calcium? My parents recently installed a water softener system and im worried that my snails wont have enough calcium to grow a shell properly

iamntbatman

You could try keeping the pH of the tank higher by adding things like limestone rock to the tank or putting crushed coral in your filter.

An even simpler solution is to just drop a couple of calcium supplement pills in your tank. Try to get the simplest kind possible. They'll slowly dissolve but the snails will also eat the white powder stuff. I did this while I lived in my old apartment, which had slightly acidic water. It definitely slowed and even began to reverse my snails' shell erosion.

SinCrisis

well my water PH is already 8 and no matter how much wood i add it doesnt seem to want to go down. For the calcium additive, is there a special kind for snails that i need to get or can calcium supplements at a pharmacy do it?

iamntbatman

Just regular old calcium supplements. The ones I have right now are Spring Valley brand 600mg calcium supplement tablets. I think I got them at Wal-mart.

Blaxicanlatino

will the calcium cupplement hav in any effects on the other fish in the aquarium? or plants?

okiemavis

Cuttlefish bones work well too. You can buy them in the bird section of your LPS.

iamntbatman

They might make your water a little harder and might increase the pH a little, but the other fish shouldn't mind too much. Some of your other fish might munch on them too, but it should be perfectly healthy for them to do so. Really, the only negative side effect of it is that it will leave a pile of white stuff wherever the pill falls, so you might want to put it on a flat rock or something so it doesn't just fall down into your substrate. Also, it kinda makes your snails poop white for a while.

Oldman47

You might want to check your KH. If it is high, chances are good that your water contains a load of calcium.

okiemavis

KH? GH will probably be a more accurate reflection of calcium. Or you could take your water to the LFS and have them check your actual calcium levels.

The reason I recommended cuttlefish bone is because it doesn't really dissolve very quickly, but the snails will actually eat it, so they'll still get plenty o' calcium.

SinCrisis

i dont know what KH and GH are... and my hosue ahs water softener salt added to the water sytem. I was told it took calcium out of the water but i dunno what else it does :-/ My fish seem ok though, the change in waterhardness didnt seem to affect them all that much but the snail is new so... PH is already at 8.0 im worried about ti going any higher than that if i add calcium...