melev

Thats pretty cool, reusing all the calcium that has been dosed into a reef tank. Eco-friendly in a way. I'm assuming you would chop up the coral branches somehow into smaller pieces?

A friend of mine does this all the time and doesn't soak them in RODI just lets them air dry until he needs media changed in CA reactor and just breaks them up into smaller pieces and tosses them into CA reactor. He calls it recycling!

Great idea. Very sad picture.

I have also read that all those snail and crab shells should go in there. My understanding is that these will also melt better as far as needed materials like magnesium. strontium, and of course calcium and alk.

I don't plan to keep soaking corals in the future; this is only a test for my own personal curiosity. I'd not heard about snail shells being used. That's interesting. I've thrown away a lot of those in the past.

I've heard that using snail shells can release phosphates, I've always just taken dead colonies and bleached them in a bucket for an hour then let them dry out. Then I give em a rinse in RODI with a splash of Prime and broken them up into 1" branches. I run an ULNS and at my last test (10/1) I tested 5 ppb phoshphor = .013 P04. Recycle away!

Blog entry updated. The water measured high in PO4 and I won't be recycling my corals after all. It's just not worth it to me.

If any of you would like to do this test yourselves, please do and post your results. I don't really see the reason for me to repeat my test.

Question, if you now took them out and put them in new water would there still be more or would it have all drawn out? Besides, those bio pellets should be able to nuke the PO4 right away.

They were put in 0-phosphate water before. Soaking and resoaking them in bucket after bucket doesn't sound like something I want to deal with. I did however get an answer to my original question.

The biopellets may be able to keep up, but I don't really like the idea of pumping PO4 into the system via Calcium Reactor effluent.

Could you tell if it were the dead polyps and skin that created the phosphates?
you should rinse the corals, and try 1 more time. (you might break the corals up before rinsing. )

if they test bad again, then you may not want to use them. (depending on the person)
(another thing would be to use a little acid to eat the outisde layer of skeleton off (which would hold the phosphates) and then rinse throughout and it would be ready.
you have a lot of media right there... but i also understand that media isnt super expensive and might not be worth it to some people to chance it)

For the sake of testing, I can do that. Maybe after RAP next weekend. I have a container of ARM ready to go with for now, and will get that installed tonight.

also, just an in-site. when i get calcium reactor media, its always wet. (moist)
so im sure all media has phosphates. (most media is smooth (the large kind) and its not rough like real corals. so i would think they give a quick soak in acid to eat the outside layer off and then they soak the media a little to clean and neutralize any excess acid...

you could always do it like frag plugs and crush your corals and put in a bag and place in your toilet tank. it will flush the media every time you flush! (if you did this ever so often, you would have some good media for the next re-fill!)