How to clean seashells from the sea. How to wash shells from limescale
Holidays at sea is an unforgettable time that you want to capture not only in amazing and funny photographs. On long winter evenings, seafood in the form of fancy shells will remind you of the sun, salty breeze and a wonderful vacation.
But will all shells bring joy and pleasant sensations? If they are not properly cleaned and processed, then not all.
Shells by nature are "houses" in which marine life lives. This means that organic remains can remain inside, if not the "owners" themselves. Consequently, once in an unfamiliar environment, they will die (if alive), or begin to decompose under the influence of temperature and humidity. To avoid an unpleasant and very pungent odor, you need to properly handle the shells.
Collection of shells
This exciting activity for children and adults turns into a real hunt for beautiful and rare shells, which become interior items. But before you put your prey in a bag, make sure that no one lives inside.
Some inhabitants of the shells are listed in the Red Book and are protected by law. No need to destroy rare inhabitants because of the beautiful seafood. Make sure there is no living being inside. This will make cleaning the shells easier and save you the hassle of dealing with bad odors.
But even dead shells can contain the organic remains of their dead inhabitants. Therefore, processing will have to be carried out in any case.
Organic removal
The first step in processing any shells is to remove the organic particles that are the source of the bad smell.
Boiling
One of the most common and effective ways that does not require special skills and tools. To do this, you will need a saucepan of the right volume and tweezers to remove tissues. Boiling or boiling will help soften the organic residue and remove it more easily.
- Place the collected shells in a saucepan, fill them with water so that it completely covers the surface.
- Put the container on the fire, bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. The time also depends on the number of shells and their shape. The more “twisted” the shape, the longer it will take to cook.
- Carefully remove the shell from the water and use a pair of sharp-tipped tweezers to remove any organic debris.
You need to be extremely careful not to burn yourself, since the extraction procedure must be carried out while the shell is still hot.
Freeze
This method guarantees the destruction of all living tissues and their unhindered removal. For this you need:
- place all the shells in an airtight bag, fill them with water and place in the freezer for several days;
- pull out the bag and let the contents melt naturally, without resorting to shock methods (pousing boiling water, defrosting with a microwave);
- Remove residue with tweezers and rinse under running water.
Boiling and freezing are effective ways to remove organic matter and get rid of the smell of rotting flesh. But they have one major drawback. There are shells that can be damaged with this processing method due to the fragile structure or the presence of cracks.
instillation
The method is not very fast, but the safest in terms of the safety of the shells. For this you need:
- Dig a hole about 45-50 cm deep. It should be large enough so that all the shells fit in it, and there is some distance between them.
- Sprinkle with earth and lightly tamp the surface. Leave for a few months.
- After the set time, dig out the shells and make sure that there is no organic matter left in them.
- Soak in warm water for a few days and then rinse under running water to remove impurities.
Beetles, worms, flies and larvae living in the ground, during the stay of shells in the ground, will destroy all animal tissues and get rid of the smell.
Shell cleaning
Several methods can be used to descale shells and remove marine polyps and other non-organic growths. And it is better in a complex to guarantee a presentable appearance.
soaking in water
After removing the organics, place the shells in clean water and leave them in a container for several days. The water needs to be changed several times a day. This technique will help remove all water-soluble particles and make the sinks cleaner.
Bleach
To achieve a lightening of the surface of seafood, they must be soaked in a liquid of the following composition: mix water and bleach in equal parts. Dip the shells in the prepared mixture and leave for a while. It will depend on how much you want to lighten up your prey. The longer the marine trophies lie in the composition, the lighter they will become.
Toothpaste
Ordinary toothpaste will help not only lighten the surface of the sea “treasures”, but also remove hardened dirt particles.
Apply a thick layer of toothpaste on the surface of the shell and leave for 5-7 hours. After the allotted time, use an old toothbrush to remove its remnants from the surface. Together with this layer of paste, all visible contaminants from the surface will be removed.
Then rinse your trophy under running water. If necessary, you can soak again in clean water for several hours and rinse again.
Final coating
In order for the shell to please the eye for a long time and look beautiful, it is recommended to treat its surface with the simplest means that are in almost every home:
- mineral oil (refined vegetable oil is allowed);
- polyurethane matte or glossy spray;
- clear nail polish.
These products will not only protect the surface from the effects of the external environment, but also emphasize the color scheme or give a deep shine.
How to wash shells from limescale
Place the shell for several hours in a 25% solution of acetic acid (1 part essence, 2 parts water), then remove the remaining plaque with a soft brush. A small amount of limescale can be removed with citric acid. To do this, it is enough to rub the place of plaque with a small slice of lemon, then rinse with warm water.
- You can also use Silit Bank to remove rust and lime deposits
How to clean shells and get rid of the smell
Even the most beautiful sea shells smell disgusting if there are rotting remains of a mollusk inside. Shells are extremely diverse in size, shape, color, but in terms of cleaning they are divided into living and dead. The dead have nothing left inside. And the living have not yet been completely cleansed of animal tissues, even if they are long dead.
When cleaning dead shells, immerse them in an aqueous solution of bleach (1:1). How much to keep in it depends on the type of mollusk and the number of shells. The minimum time is 30 minutes, but if the shells are very dirty or you want to bleach them white, keep longer. Before removing them from the solution, make sure that the periostracum, the leathery exfoliating covering of some shells, has come off. Then rinse well with clean warm water.
If sea acorns or the like remain on the surface, scrape it off with a knife.
- If the lip of the sink is chipped, round off the sharp edges with a file or sanding disc.
- If you want the shell to shine, grease it with a thin layer of mineral or baby oil.
When cleaning live shells, you can use any of the following methods to get rid of the residue that rots inside.
Bury shells in the yard. Dig up after one or two months. Insects, bacteria, worms, larvae and other living creatures will eat everything that needs to be got rid of during this time.
- Deep freeze. Put the shells in a plastic bag, fill them with water and put them in the freezer for several days. Then let it thaw at room temperature. After that, it will be easy to pick up the remnants of the flesh and pull them out.
- Put the shells in boiling water for 5 minutes. Take out one at a time with tongs, take it with gloves or a towel so as not to burn yourself and pull out everything superfluous from the inside.
- A foul-smelling but effective way to clean shells is to "fry" them in the microwave. The time depends on its power and the size of the shells. Start with 30 seconds and add 10 if the initial time is not enough. When removing shells from the oven and removing the soft remains of shellfish from them, use tongs and be careful not to burn yourself.
If something still remains inside, put the shell in the yard - let flies, ants and other insects feast on it. When the rotting flesh is done with, treat as described above for dead shells. Soak in bleach and rinse thoroughly.
Upon completion of processing, the shells are oiled or varnished.
It's all about seafood, which we often bring from vacation, decorate the interior of our house with them, use them to make decorative compositions. And now I want to talk to you about the gifts of Christ. I invite you to visit the pages of the site xdari.ru, here you will find a map of Orthodox Churches, where you can order trebs online online: magpies, prayers, submit notes and much more. The Map of the Temples will also help you provide assistance to the Temples themselves, it contains information about the geographical location of the Temple, its description with a link to the full article about the Temple.
How can you effectively and relatively safely clean the sink itself? After all, from the seabed we get it all in silt and algae, with a limestone coating ...Initially they are
And we want to have
Plaque on the shell dissolves perfectly in vinegar. You can lubricate the rapana with vinegar essence (70%), rinse with a brush after ten minutes. And you can soak in vinegar for several hours and also clean with a brush.
Be very careful with vinegar! The shell dissolves in it! You need to carefully monitor the reaction and wash off at the right time!Another method that was found on the World Wide Web is to soak in a chlorine solution. Keep it for so long until the top coating from the shell begins to rub off with your fingers.
I have personally tried both options.
1. I don’t have vinegar essence, I just poured vinegar into a jar and put a shell there, after 3 minutes it became a hole). It became interesting to me and I didn’t get it, the upper curl just melted before my eyes in a couple of minutes! An amazing sight, just magic, I advise you to watch) After all, the shell is very thick and durable, but then it just disappears ..2. I soaked the shells in a domestos solution. They lay there for 4 or 5 days, the top layer (and they were very dirty !!) dissolved, rubbed off, as promised. But! After drying, the shell became like white paint painted....
I think that if you open it with varnish, the color will appear ...As for the shells, an even bigger problem is to clean it from the inside. One way or another, a shell is a living creature, and if you get it from the bottom, it often deteriorates and an unpleasant smell appears.
To be honest, I don’t know the upper part, I have never had to clean it, but I have come across the inside. In the summer, when we rested in a camp by the sea, we put the found shells in an anthill for a couple of days. They ate away the entire inside and we only had to wash it well.
Now the following methods are still known, though I haven’t tried the last one:
1. Using a special knife (a long process, I tried to do it with an ordinary knife).
2. Freeze the whole shell, frozen meat comes out well.There were no problems with getting the insides at all, but with the consequences ....)
They boiled shells for me, but the inner surface cracked a little ...
They say that after freezing everything really separates well ...
But those who caught shells did not know the last way ... Now I have cleared the rapans of moss, they are so white and clean ... BUT they stink terribly!
Moreover, half of the shells themselves do not have rapans inside, but they all stink ..
The smell clearly comes from the outer ear of the shell, which is near the entrance, it is large and mussels lived in it, and they stink ... it’s impossible to get them out of there, no matter how I use knitting needles, an awl and tweezers.Here are my rapanki lying on the street, in the rain for a week, but still smelly, I feel that they won’t get into the house (
Sister advises to open with varnish, and just pour varnish into those smelly ears to block the smell, how do you smoke, something will come of it?
Which of the people who wandered along the seashore did not collect beautiful shells? They are so attractive and exotic that there is a completely natural desire to keep this beauty for yourself and enjoy the long winter evenings, remembering the sea. But, unfortunately, if the shell is not old and scorched by the sun, but also contains a live mollusk, then, over time, without proper processing, it darkens and emits a bad smell.
Any found or caught shell must be prepared, that is, the mollusk must be removed and cleaned of plaque. And this process is not as simple as it seems. There are also certain tricks here that will allow you to keep the sink in all its glory.
The shells of marine mollusks are very diverse, and therefore cleaning is quite individual for each of the species. Bivalves must first be opened, for which the muscle fibers that tighten them from both sides are cut with a knife. The opened shell is cleaned, closed again and pulled together with a thread to dry. But it is much more difficult to clean snails or mollusks that are in a single-leaf twisted shell.
There are two main methods - boiling and freezing. The shell is boiled for several minutes, and then removed with a hook from the inside of the mollusk, after which it is dried in the sun. But many shells with this method of processing can darken or crumble. Therefore, this method is only suitable for large and strong mollusks.
Small and tender shells are kept for several days in a jar of clean cold water, periodically changing it. As a result, the living mollusk dies and, rotting, is easily removed. Also, snails can be frozen in the freezer, and after thawing the mollusk, it is easy to remove with tweezers and dry the shell.
But knowing how to get a clam out of its shell is not enough. It is also necessary to properly clean the lime shell from algae and other formed plaque. To do this, the sink is placed for several hours in a solution of chlorine bleach, and then washed with water. To improve the color, the shell should be lubricated with mineral oil.
It is curious that in exotic countries there is no need to resort to such tricks. Mollusks are simply hung in the hot sun, and they themselves come out of the shell. They are immediately picked up and removed. And the shells are dried in the sun and varnished.
All of the above methods are not particularly complicated. They are worth it to make quite a bit of effort and make an exotic souvenir with your own hands, which will bring pleasant memories of the days spent on the seashore to the owner.
HOW TO CLEAN AND CLEAN SHELLS.
I really love the sea and everything connected with it, and now I will share with you my funny master class "Jewelry Box"
PROGRESS:
1. We process shells. For this work, I took river shells similar to malusks caught by myself in the river (dead, of course). I think you all have a question how to clean them from dead remains, nasty smell, algae and bleach them, and it turned out to be very easy to process them
Even the most beautiful sea shells smell disgusting if there are rotting remains of a mollusk inside. Shells are extremely diverse in size, shape, color, but in terms of cleaning they are divided into living and dead. The dead have nothing left inside. And the living have not yet been completely cleansed of animal tissues, even if they are long dead.
When cleaning dead shells, immerse them in an aqueous solution of bleach (1:1). How much to keep in it depends on the type of mollusk and the number of shells. The minimum time is 30 minutes, but if the shells are very dirty or you want to bleach them white, keep longer. Before removing them from the solution, make sure that the periostracum, the leathery exfoliating covering of some shells, has come off. Then rinse well with clean warm water.
If you don't have bleach, use the different "hell mix" cleansing effects:
soda, toilet cleaner, tiles, windows, floors, sinks, stoves....etc. Then after 2 hours rinse and brush.
If sea acorns or the like remain on the surface, scrape it off with a knife.
- If the lip of the sink is chipped, round off the sharp edges with a file or sanding disc.
- If you want the shell to shine, grease it with a thin layer of mineral or baby oil.
To make your shells shine later, cover them with nail polish or clear furniture polish.
I usually lubricate the shells with cheap, greasy baby cream - to create a wet effect.
When cleaning live shells, you can use any of the following methods to get rid of the residue that rots inside.
Bury shells in the yard. Dig up after one or two months. Insects, bacteria, worms, larvae and other living creatures will eat everything that needs to be got rid of during this time.
- Deep freeze. Put the shells in a plastic bag, fill them with water and put them in the freezer for several days. Then let it thaw at room temperature. After that, it will be easy to pick up the remnants of the flesh and pull them out.
- Put the shells in boiling water for 5 minutes. Take out one at a time with tongs, take it with gloves or a towel so as not to burn yourself and pull out everything superfluous from the inside.
- A foul-smelling but effective way to clean shells is to "fry" them in the microwave. The time depends on its power and the size of the shells. Start with 30 seconds and add 10 if the initial time is not enough. When removing shells from the oven and removing the soft remains of shellfish from them, use tongs and be careful not to burn yourself.
If something still remains inside, put the shell in the yard - let flies, ants and other insects feast on it. When the rotting flesh is done with, treat as described above for dead shells. Soak in bleach and rinse thoroughly.