Elquinjena Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 (edited) I have wall of dragon stone I created, i stacked and crazy glued it and it looks pretty neat but my water keeps getting harder over time. I live in Washington which has soft water and I have added crush coral to keep my Ph from crashing so not sure if that has help create harder water but my water has gotten harder over time ( yes I do water changes each week). I have even in created the amount of catappa leaves to try and make the water softer. If I am reading my aquarium co op test strips right, my water hardness is getting up to the 150-300 range. I worry that its getting too hard for my betta's. I have a 20 high with a divider so i have a betta on each side. If I pull the dragon stone, is there any other stone that I can use in this tank that wont raise the hardness of the water? OR Is there anything I can use to Seal the dragon stone and be safe in the tank? Edited March 20, 2021 by Elquinjena Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT_ Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 (edited) The calcium in crushed coral will raise your gh. to answer the question in your subject: I'm also in WA with soft water and don't add crushed coral. I did notice that even know dragon stone isn't supposed to change gh it did raise mine by 2° or 35ppm. this only happened after scrubbing it to remove algae though so I think it's in the dirt that's trapped in the stone. if you're being pedantic then the "real" dragon stone is only found in one or two places and you and I may have a different stone with different composition. To me if it looks like a duck then it's a duck at least as far as cool rocks go. Edited March 20, 2021 by CT_ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elquinjena Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 Before I made my dragon stone wall, I did scrub the heck out of each stone and removed all the dirt that I could get to. I even scraped out the dirt from all the holes using a small screw driver. They were as clean as humanly possible. I got my dragon stone from the Co-op, got one of their bags of dragon stones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT_ Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 I did the same thing but still found loose dirt. Good call on the ACO stone. I paid 3x as much as the aco price at another local store. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elquinjena Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 I wonder if they can be sealed, but what could I use to seal the stone off (coat it so it wont leach anything into the water from the dragon stone) and yet still safe for the tank =/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT_ Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 Epoxy works. There are food contact grades. But really it's the crushed coral raising gh I think. My dragon stone only raised it a bit and it came back down with regular water changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstoy21 Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 (edited) I think dragon stone is supposed to be inert. I have it in a crystal red shrimp tank and it doesn’t affect the water chemistry that I’ve experienced. However, I’ve seen videos where people discuss knock-off dragon stone that’s not inert, but to be honest I don’t know a lot about that. Edited March 21, 2021 by tolstoy21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spewing_nonsense_ Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 18 hours ago, Elquinjena said: I wonder if they can be sealed, but what could I use to seal the stone off (coat it so it wont leach anything into the water from the dragon stone) and yet still safe for the tank =/ I honestly wouldn't try sealing it off bc especially if there is dirt in there it's not going to get good contact with the stone and will start to flake off as the most important part of painting or coating anything is preparation, so if it's still dirty it wont do much. Also in order to really fully coat it and seal it you'd probably just have to submerge it into a container of epoxy and leave it maybe slosh it around and make sure all the air bubbles get out, but even then I dont really think that'll keep stuff from leaching out and the chemicals in epoxy might start leaching out, even after letting it fully cure which would take a month maybe even more bc of how much would be pooled up in certain areas of the stone, plus it will be most likely unsightly as itll be hard to get a nice even layer and you'll probably get dripsyoull be able to see. My recommendation would be to just take it out or just keep trying to counteract the extra gh. Now also, as far as I know having extra gh and minerals in the water isn't detrimental to bettas, it's more so just when the ph starts to get high, but I could be mistaken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT_ Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 3 hours ago, Spewing_nonsense_ said: the chemicals in epoxy might start leaching out, even after letting it fully cure which would take a month maybe even more bc of how much would be pooled up in certain areas of the stone, There's is food safe epoxy and it comes in a thin formulation you can paint it on with a brush. If you've ever had anything in an aluminum can you've encountered it in the inner lining. Also since epoxy hardens with a catalyst it doesn't need air and cures uniformly at any thickness. But yeah I agree that's probably going too far for little benefit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spewing_nonsense_ Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 40 minutes ago, CT_ said: There's is food safe epoxy and it comes in a thin formulation you can paint it on with a brush. If you've ever had anything in an aluminum can you've encountered it in the inner lining. Also since epoxy hardens with a catalyst it doesn't need air and cures uniformly at any thickness. But yeah I agree that's probably going too far for little benefit. Yes but just bc something is ood grade and safe for humans doesnt mean itll be safe for fish, chlorine in our tap water being the prime example. Also I realize you can brush it on but with the varied surface of dragon stone a brush wouldn't really be able to fully coat it and in order to really ensure full coating, you'd need to just submerge the dragon stone for the effect you'd be wanting on this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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