Crushed Coral Hiding

[PineSong]

In my tanks with HOBs I keep crushed coral in the HOB and in my pregnant guppy/fry tanks I just have bags of it sitting around looking utilitarian, but in my "display" tanks where I only have sponge filters and want things to look pretty....I still need coral for my snails and livebearers.

I don't want white in my substrate and I don't want white bags lumped on the bottom. 

Anybody else have strategies for this?

 

[lefty o]

a small mesh bag or two with some coral in it, and bury it in the substrate.

[Dwayne Brown]

If you don't use a graval vac you could add a layer of it under an inch or so of whatever substrate you prefer, essentially hiding it. 

[PineSong]

On 11/30/2021 at 8:08 PM, lefty o said:

a small mesh bag or two with some coral in it, and bury it in the substrate.

 

On 11/30/2021 at 9:50 PM, Dwayne Brown said:

If you don't use a graval vac you could add a layer of it under an inch or so of whatever substrate you prefer, essentially hiding it. 

These strategies are sound but I don't have that deep a substrate and it's already heavily planted so I don't want to dig it up or add more layers on top. If I had known my pH would get so low before I set the tank up, I would have layered the whole bottom with it under my gravel. Then again, if my pH stays this low, it would eventually dissolve and I'd be back to square one. Hate water chemistry!

After I thought about it some more, I decided what I wanted was something that looked like wood, that I could disguise with plants.  I hunted online and ordered some sinking ceramic betta logs. I will put mesh bags of coral in those and grow anubias or java fern on the top to disguise it, and stick them into a less-easily seen corner of the tank.