raising my ph

[beachy]

I bought some new gravel a couple of months ago, its a dark gravel cant remember what it was called, but now my ph has droped quite low.I have put some small broken pieces of coral into my filter and the ph has gone back up to just over 7.

Does any one know if doing this will harm my fish, being freshwater,they seem allrite, or does anyone know a better way to raise ph without having to play around with chemicals? cheers:)

[Caryl]

If the coral has worked then stick with it. Some people use shells or crushed bird grit.

[beachy]

cool, i guess that would do the same thing, coral seems to work alrite my ph isnt doing anything crazy(yet) i will keep my eye on it though, i just cant be bothered with chemicals, i would rather do a weekly water change and leave it at that.

[JMemonic]

Beachy I would suggest a modification to my DIY CO2 diffuser use the same idea but fill it with coral, crushed shells or bird grit, anything high in calcium, then instead of running CO2 through it run a line off your air pump with a tap to control the flow.

That should give you a little more "active" calcium.

[beachy]

Sweet so the coral doesnt come into contact with the water?

Its all done through the air bubbles?

[JMemonic]

On second thought a box filter working normally filled with you calcium media would work better, you need the water to flow over the media and "dissolve", normal operation is going to give a better result.

Sorry if the earlier reply confuses, I had just woken up and brain was not fully engaged.

[beachy]

Sweet sounds better, so pretty much the same as putting it in my filter.