Phosphates From Aragonite

[Dan_P]

How much phosphate can I expect to leach from newly purchased aragonite? Has this been studied? Anyone ever measure phosphate levels for a newly set up tank?

 

[jackson6745]

Using Carib-sea aragalive in my system from the start, I didn't have detectable po4 for a few months. I was using a hanna low range colorimeter to test. I think the aragonite comes in pretty clean. The rock is a different story

 

[Dan_P]

Using Carib-sea aragalive in my system from the start, I didn't have detectable po4 for a few months. I was using a hanna low range colorimeter to test. I think the aragonite comes in pretty clean. The rock is a different story

Roughly, how many gallons of water to pounds of aragonite were you using die this set up?

I assume the rocks were live.

Thanks!

 

[jackson6745]

Rocks were live and I cured them personally for months prior to setting up tank. No po4 coming from them, I tested in the water several times that I cured them in.

I have a shallow sandbed of roughly 50lbs in about 130 gallons.

 

[Amphibious]

Aragonite sand contains no phosphates. If you?ve got phosphates in your system, whether it?s new or old, your getting them from some place other than the Aragonite sand. I?ve been selling and using it for ten years. Never heard of this before.

D i c k

 

[Boomer]

All Aragonite contains phosphate some more than others. Phosphate is a natural ion in aragonite. However, the Carib-Sea is very low and not a worry. There have been some reactor media that have been rather high. Most such aragonite is mined and such areas may have been subject to meteoric waters and such waters peculating through the land deposits will pick up phosphates. They usually attach to the exposed surface area of the aragonite. Most phosphate issues are not aragonite related. There have been some media assays in the past for phosphate.

Here is one such study for this hobby years ago

Short Take: Calcium Reactor Substrate -- Phosphate Levels
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/4/short

 

[Dan_P]

All Aragonite contains phosphate some more than others. Phosphate is a natural ion in aragonite. However, the Carib-Sea is very low and not a worry. There have been some reactor media that have been rather high. Most such aragonite is mined and such areas may have been subject to meteoric waters and such waters peculating through the land deposits will pick up phosphates. They usually attach to the exposed surface area of the aragonite. Most phosphate issues are not aragonite related. There have been some media assays in the past for phosphate.

Here is one such study for this hobby years ago

Short Take: Calcium Reactor Substrate -- Phosphate Levels
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/4/short

What your saying makes sense. Good article also. Here is what got me thinking.

I did an experiment with aragonite in conjunction my study of where cyano gets nutrients. Aragonite can soak up phosphate like GFO but not quite as efficiently I proved this with crushed clam shells from the beach and then sugar sized crushed coral. I scaled up the experiment and lowered the phosphates in my 40 gallon aquarium with aragonite. It took over 3 kg of aragonite to lower the phosphates noticeably. Then I got to thinking what if this happens in the ocean, coral skeletons or coral rubble absorbing phosphates, and then I put in the aquarium and the process reverses and dumps phosphate into my aquarium! In retrospect, I think it might have been a case of a little knowledge can be dangerous.

Thanks for the info!

 

[Boomer]

Dan

I agree with all of that ^ 100 %. It is really old news and has been around for years. There have even been peer-reviewed articles of various media and their ability to adsorb phosphates and carbonated, like aragonite, are one of them,,S is limestone. These are often written, which has nothing to do with this hobby but other industries looking for a cheap method.

One of the reasons Cyano grows on bleached coral that have been in a tank for years is the phosphate in the water has attached to the Ca++ ion in the CaCO3, which they can extract it. What is even more interesting, about Cyano, is they do not even need to do that. Cyano can extract phosphate from organic phosphate, which your kit can not detect and do so extracelluarly. Also, Cyano feed off of CO2,mwhere most true marine adages, especially the macro's, use bicarbonate (HCO3) instead of CO2. In short they remove the H and 1 O and you get CO2.

 

[Dan_P]

Those darn microorganisms!

They can even obtain phosphate from Ca3(PO4)2, something that is of interest in the agriculture workd, though a different species from our red slime. I wouldn't put it past the marine version to do tricky things like this though.