Can You Put Sea Shells in a Fish Tank Safely?

Last Updated on December 7, 2021 by cmoarz

Seashells make great decorations for your tank. Many fish species love to hide in shells and feel safe when they are around. They help add extra calcium carbonate to the water and can increase hardness for when it’s desired. But is it safe to put seashells in a fish tank from the beach? Especially in a freshwater aquarium?

Truth is, there are some things you will need to do to prepare your freshly found shells before you can place them in the aquarium, but for the most part, it is safe!

Can I Put Sea Shells in My Freshwater Tank From The Beach?

Is it ok to put seashells in a freshwater tank? Yes, it is! But there are some very simple things you are going to need to do beforehand in order to make them safe.

When you first find a shell on the beach, It’s going to be covered in salt and sand. It’s also a strong possibility it will be covered in bacteria, algae, and maybe even rotting pieces left behind from its last owner.

You don’t want any of this in your aquarium, especially a freshwater tank. The amount of salt on a sea shell is quite low and won’t hurt your fish, but it’s everything else that might end up being an issue.

Especially considering how dirty seawater actually is. It’s filled with all sorts of nasties that you don’t want to introduce into your closed aquarium ecosystem, including diseases and parasites.

How to Prepare Beach Seashells for Aquarium

Preparing seashells for an aquarium is super easy and requires very little effort on your part.

Step one: Rinse them in cold water. You want to remove as much big debris as you can. Be sure to inspect each shell as you rinse them for nay stuck on guck or rotting dried-out flesh. You might need to pick at that to remove it.

Rinsing should remove most of the random loose debris that may be attached or inside the shell. Once everything is rinsed to your satisfaction, Onto the next step, Disinfecting them.

Step Two: You’re going to want to get a pot full of cold water on the stove ready to go for this. You want to start the shells in cold water and allow them to slowly heat up with the water.

If you drop them into boiling water, Or just hot water, You won’t give the shells enough time to adapt and they may crack or shatter.

Add the shells to the cold water in the pot and make sure there’s enough room to cover all the shells completely in water.

Bring the pot to a boil and hold it there for a solid 10 minutes.

Once finished, you can dump them into a strainer and shake them around a bit to get as much water out as you can.

You do NOT need to rinse the hot shells in the water. Bonus, The boiling would have acted as a dechlorinator so no need to worry about that either.

You can rinse them if you wish in hot water, But, they will no longer be dechlorinated, and the shells are at risk of cracking. It’s really not necessary.

Step Three: Let them cool down to room temp before adding them to the tank. If you add them to the tank while they are still hot it could increase the temperature of the aquarium. It could also cause the shells to shatter once they hit the water.

Once they are room temp, dump them into the aquarium. Or place them in strategic places you’ve already got in mind! Your fish will love em’.

Various Place You Can Collect High Quality Undamaged Shells

Beach: This one is obvious, Although it might be hard to find perfect shells as the ones you find on the beach have usually been banged around for a long time. This damages them with cracks and missing chips.

They’re also very dirty  – dirtier than the other options on this list!

Restaurant: Seafood restaurants often have more shells than they know what to do with. They are surely happy to give them away to anyone who wishes to take them.

These shells are usually high quality as they’ve come off of living creatures right to a person’s plate.

Be extra sure to remove any oils that might be on these shells. Also, If the shell was in a very oily dish, it’s probably best just to avoid them completely as the cleaning of these shells will require much more effort on your part.

You will need to use something that removes the oil and then you will need to be sure there’s no remaining cleaner on them. It’s a risky thing.

Grocery store: Grocery stores are another diamond in the rough. You can buy the shells in the seafood section of the store, Or simply ask to see if they have any they need to toss out.

You shouldn’t have much issue finding them here. And they should be already mostly clean and just need a quick boil for disinfecting them.