aragonite sand

[Anonymous]

what do you think about aragonite as far as having a deep sand bed and it's suppose to supply calcium and keep alk in range. this i'm reading from the company that sells it.

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if i knew, why am i reading the boards?

 

[Anonymous]

Hey tom,

Yeah, the aragonite will help your Alk remain stable... I think it's for stability reasons more than anything.

I'd be wary about the calcium thing, though. Yes, I believe it can provide a little calcium to your tank, but overall you will probably still need to dose, etc. Especially if you plan on keeping a lot of hard corals in the tank.



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E >< () !) !_! S

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with exodus on this. IMO, it provides some calcium and alkalinity, but not enough unless you have huge expanses of sand, or few rapidly calcifying corals. I know there are some strong proponents that claim success with deep sand beds, and they may be correct in some situations, but I don't believe that it generally applies to all situations.

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Randy Holmes-Farley

 

[Anonymous]

telltom -

Aragonite disassociates very little in the relatively high pH of a marine tank....whatever the caribsea bag says.

Thats why people dreamed up Ca reactors... when you bubble CO2 through it, the pH gets low enough where it dissolves at a rate thats actually helpful.

The pH further down in a deep sandbed does indeed get lower... 7.8-ish or lower. It does help some (every little bit helps), but I dont believe that its enough to keep a fully stocked reef supplied with trace elements.

This 'little bit' of calcium and alk supplementation is perhaps the only reason to use aragonite over silica based sands, it appears. (oh boy, I'm probably opening a can of worms here

)

I dont know of anyone that has a reef, even with a deep bed of aragonite, that doesnt do some form of trace element replacement - even if its just water changes. And heavily stocked systems nearly always require putting something in for Ca and alk.

thoughts,

Steve