KZ Coral Snow = Chalk?

[karimwassef]

maybe they thought of my idea above first?

[bertoni]

Could be.

[smatter]

I've been dosing Tunze Care Bacter for the past few weeks and in addition to the reduction of algae on the glass and detritus, my water has been gin-clear. The bacteria come on a substrate of powdered Maerl gravel which is coralline algae. We all know what coralline algae is .

[taricha]

Saw this line in a paper I was looking at for other stuff, and thought of this thread.
Coral Reefs: Algal Ecosystems

"Many algae in reefs are weakly calcified (Udotea, Penicillus, dasycladaceans, Liagora, Galaxaura, squamariaceans, Padina, etc.), and under sporadic weak wave and current situations, a ‘‘dust’’ of aragonite crystals is often found coating virtually all algal surfaces."

Abundant aragonite dust produced on real reefs, would totally make sense if calcifying organisms equipped to make use of them.

(it's also a great paper on how powerful algae are in shaping what we think of as coral-dominated reefs.)

[smatter]

@taricha will definitely check it out.

[karimwassef]

Ooooo.... now I have to experiment.

[orcafood]

One time I added a dsb of very fine aragonite to an operating tank. I have never in my life had corals grow like they did for the first month or so after I added all the aragonite. I just dumped it in whole-sale, like a good 50 lbs. Ever since I have been trying to come up with a way to repeat exactly what happened in a reproducible manor. A red cap I had must have grown over an inch in a few weeks.

[taricha]

Makes you wonder if the most biologically valuable part of the bags of sand is the dust we so carefully rinse down the drain.

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[bertoni]

I was very careful not to rinse my sand for that reason and others. Mine went from the bag into the tank. I might have had cloudy water for a bit longer, though.

[karimwassef]

Are we talking about dosing chalk?? If so, I'm in!

[orcafood]

I'd say what I dosed was very fine aragonite powder which likely contained not only caco3 but many of the other necessary elements and ions. I didn't rinse it at all either. Might be why Kz coral snow appears to be off white, it is powdered aragonite?

At one point I was thinking about filling up a huge tube halfway with well powdered aragonite, then every morning flip the "rain stick" while water trickles through all the while.

[smatter]

Caribsea's Aragamite is powdered aragonite and has been around for years. One could simulate dumping gravel that hasn't been rinsed anytime. I'm going to buy a big bag of powdered Maerl based on the positive results I have seen thus far. It can be had cheaply.

[orcafood]

Maerl is 30% CaCO3, so it should work nicely. I was not aware of aragamite either, cool beans.

[karimwassef]

I think it's that the chalk collects organics around it. The supplements may do that already but in my tank, I have very high organics already (no skimmer), so I am converting the organics into more usable food bites.

[orcafood]

It is all about particle size of the suspended CaCo3. Nanoparticles can even be produced with ultrasound via CaOH2 + CO2 precipitation which would have much better adsorption characteristics than just CaCO3 dust.

It probably doesn't just bind organic molecules, I'm sure that there is a myriad of effects that play out with other ions in seawater, much too complicated to pin down. Inorganics will likely adsorb to some extent I bet.

I would not be surprised if corals are capable of incorporating consumed CaCO3 particles of a certain size, the bound organic/inorganics would at least get consumed for sure. If a coral captures CaCO3 from the water bound with food why would the coral release it?

I think I read that certain zoas and protopalys incorporate the CaCO3 substrate they are growing on into themselves.

[Bigdelfin]

And if you put pure granular (analytical) calcite at the bottom of the aquarium?
can it replace the calcium reactor?
or will calcium leaching be so slow that it can be neglected at all?

[bertoni]

No, there won't be any calcium leaching. Bacteria might free some over time by secreting acid, but the pH needs to be very low for calcite to dissolve.

[Fishman77]

Has anyone used the Coral snow plus? I was wondering if anyone knows what they added in it to reduce phosphates.

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