Some questions on Calcium Carbonate

[AvianAquatics]

Ok so right now I'm trying to write a journal on ShrimpNow! to get a free new Mosura product for my shrimps. I just got this unique idea on what to write but unfortunately it's around 80% hypothesis. I need a few answers to turn this hypothesis to fact (hopefully) and win that NEW Mosura product (sorry, I'm just glued to this :P). So here's the questions:

1) To help shrimp successively molt, they need calcium carbonate to strengthen their new shells. True?

2) Are some snails are more prone to getting weak shells (and dying from it) more than other snails?

3) Calgary water is extremely hard, like 7.8 - 8.0 so is Calcium carbonate the only thing that's buffering (the GH) the water or is there more?

Thanks for helping and if all my hypothesis is correct and I finish writing the article I'll provide a link for everyone to see

Edited August 26, 2010 by AvianAquatics

[Cgy_Betta_Guy]

you like your fish to mold? :boxed:

Sorry... not being helpful am I ? hehe

[Jayba]

you like your fish to mold?

Sorry... not being helpful am I ? hehe

Awesome catch, LOL!

[Cgy_Betta_Guy]

and molding successively at that!

[Evolution]

you like your fish to mold?

Sorry... not being helpful am I ? hehe

No, he likes his shrimp to mold!

[jvision]

OK, so shrimp's exoskeleton is a calcium-rich protien called chitin; so, calcium carbonate may help them harden up after they molT.

IME, larger snails get weaker shells faster - probably because they do require more Ca to keep growing their shells AND because they have a larger surface area exposed to acids in the water.

Hardness and pH are not necessarily related - ie. you can have highish pH (7.8-8) and have very soft water. Instead of measuring pH to figure out hardness, you should measure hardness. Your water company should post a breakdown on its website - in Edmonton, it's Epcor. Calcium is not the only thing that buffers hardness - Magnesium is also an important buffer in measuring hardness.

[Evolution]

Are not many freshwater herbivorous inverts mostly dependant on diet to supply them with proper requirements of Ca? ie. calcium rich algae and plant matter.

[timbruun]

Before I was reconstituing distilled water for my shrimp they would always die. Part of the reason being I have very soft water with low Ca and Mg. My pH is also around 8.5 which doesn't help either. I have green and cherry shrimp.

I agree with Jason that you can't look at pH and know what your hardness is. There's more to it than that.

With my snails I found that the Ramshorn snails shells deteriorate quite quickly while pond snails and Malaysian Trumpet snails not so much. I assume it's at least partly because the Ramshorns have quite thin shells.

When I start reconstituting distilled water I also started somewhat fertilizing my main large tanks to get the Ca and Mg up while somewhat fertilizign my few plants. It's alot easier to do this than to get large amounts of distilled for big tanks. I have noticed that the fish are happier, the plants grow better and the snails shells don't fall apart while doing. I have also noticed that if i dont' keep up the water changes and adding my mix then everything starts doing worse. I would guess that what I'm addign gets used up slowly and needs to be added back into the water on a regular basis through water changes since my water isn't originally like that.

[AvianAquatics]

Sorry everyone spelling error. I was looking at it yesterday and thought something was off with "mold" but couldn't place my hands on it :P

And I also meant GH, I'm getting stupid

jivison - Thanks so much you just made my theory true, I will now go and write the article (or maybe later since I can't seem to find my motivation)

tim - It's really interesting because all my Ramshorns are alive and my MTS are dead! I thought it might be because the MTS can't get their shells repaired fast enough while Ramshorns doesn't need that much calcium?