Concrete to raise pH??

[Cresta]

Now here's an idea...just wondering what are the drawbacks.....

I know GARF advocates "aggrocrete". Bascially its just concrete mix with substrate. They say to place the product in fresh water until the pH drops to acceptable levels, about 8 before putting in tank and can substitute for live rock. Nevermind the liverock issue they claim...just taking the factual pH reading of concrete....

If your tank is low in pH and the concrete starts at 12+ pH. Would placing a small chunk of the concrete in the tank even out the pH?? ie. concrete 12 pH + tank water 7 pH = final reading 8 pH? Obviously it is not going to be a huge block of concrete, but a small piece?

There are many reasons for low pH and this won't solve the cause. It will target the result and not the cause. For raising pH fast, is this method even valid? Just a crazy idea for raising pH??

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
Never did it, but as long as you monitor the pH, and be able to correct the problem if things go haywire, I don't see any problem with it. The issue is that the concrete also leach other minerals in addition to kalk, and you have to be very careful about what type of ingred. you use to make the concrete.

pH is a power unit, and the inaction between ions make it not a simple task to calculate the result if you only know the pH and volume of two portion.

 

[K77]

Now here's an idea...just wondering what are the drawbacks.....

I know GARF advocates "aggrocrete". Bascially its just concrete mix with substrate. They say to place the product in fresh water until the pH drops to acceptable levels, about 8 before putting in tank and can substitute for live rock. Nevermind the liverock issue they claim...just taking the factual pH reading of concrete....

If your tank is low in pH and the concrete starts at 12+ pH. Would placing a small chunk of the concrete in the tank even out the pH?? ie. concrete 12 pH + tank water 7 pH = final reading 8 pH? Obviously it is not going to be a huge block of concrete, but a small piece?

There are many reasons for low pH and this won't solve the cause. It will target the result and not the cause. For raising pH fast, is this method even valid? Just a crazy idea for raising pH??

I don't think this is the original intention. 8O

Garf uses Portland cement I think instead of concrete. I think concrete would be very dangerous as it has many other elements besides just binding elements (silicate sand, rock, etc).

And its really the aragonite that's in the garf aragocrete that auto-adjusts your PH. You get kind of the same effect from a good sand bed the first year or two you have it. You can use an aragonite sand bed to keep your PH stable in the same way, concrete may not give you very good results in relation to araagonite.

:wink:

 

[dsb1829]

The problem with this is the side products. The curing cement leaches ammonia for starters. Unless you have a very strong tank I doubt that you can add enough cement to buffer without nuking your tank. pickling lime would do better :lol: