I love how I constantly find crossovers between my hobbies and my education. I think I've learned more about chemistry and marine science from this hobby than I have from any course I've taken.
Anyway we recently studied calcium metabolism in humans. We learned something that I thought would be interesting for hobbyists. The body has very precise mechanisms for controlling plasma levels of Ca, Mg and PO4. One of them is to increase the rate of PO4 excretion when plasma levels of Ca rise. This is in order to prevent CaPO4 from precipitating in our organs and forming deposits in such places as kidney's and heart valves. I have always read that we have to be careful when manipulating Ca and alkanity ( not even sure what that is actually measuring though I know that Ca solubility is inversely related to pH ) in our tanks to avoid crystallization and precipitation. Perhaps its not just a rise in pH that is important to watch for in our tanks but Ca and PO4 interaction.
Anyway we recently studied calcium metabolism in humans. We learned something that I thought would be interesting for hobbyists. The body has very precise mechanisms for controlling plasma levels of Ca, Mg and PO4. One of them is to increase the rate of PO4 excretion when plasma levels of Ca rise. This is in order to prevent CaPO4 from precipitating in our organs and forming deposits in such places as kidney's and heart valves. I have always read that we have to be careful when manipulating Ca and alkanity ( not even sure what that is actually measuring though I know that Ca solubility is inversely related to pH ) in our tanks to avoid crystallization and precipitation. Perhaps its not just a rise in pH that is important to watch for in our tanks but Ca and PO4 interaction.
