charles matthews
New member
Randy:
I have been interested in ways to goose natural dissolution of aragonite. I was thinking of doing the experiment of putting a ten gallon tank inside a reef, filling it with aragonite to 12 inch depth, and placing a plenum underneath with an undergravel filter. I would leave one airlift tube OPEN so the plenum would actually be open to the aquarium water. At the other end the plenum would place a small heater set to 84 degrees, causing thermal convection upward. Turtle grass planted on top. So you have a settling filter on the bottom of the tank, an upside-down aerobic bed, and turtle grass roots reoxygenating the upflow.
It occurred to me that most of the heavy metal binding might be to the lower layer of this setup, not only to calcium carbonate but also to organics. The advantage would be that the reverse circulation would prevent resolubilization, unlike a traditional sand bed, which has metal precipitates on the top surface, and may be resolubilized by algae and bacterial action. All of this is just a crazy thought, of course.
And I wondered what you thought of its potential as a calcium reactor, denitrator, and general capacity to hold heavy metals before perhaps having to be replaced a la Dr. Shimek (assuming such measures are needed in terms of binding by organic chelators and rendering free heavy metals less toxic)? I mean, could you take a shot at the potential for long term storage of heavy metals in such a device?
I have been interested in ways to goose natural dissolution of aragonite. I was thinking of doing the experiment of putting a ten gallon tank inside a reef, filling it with aragonite to 12 inch depth, and placing a plenum underneath with an undergravel filter. I would leave one airlift tube OPEN so the plenum would actually be open to the aquarium water. At the other end the plenum would place a small heater set to 84 degrees, causing thermal convection upward. Turtle grass planted on top. So you have a settling filter on the bottom of the tank, an upside-down aerobic bed, and turtle grass roots reoxygenating the upflow.
It occurred to me that most of the heavy metal binding might be to the lower layer of this setup, not only to calcium carbonate but also to organics. The advantage would be that the reverse circulation would prevent resolubilization, unlike a traditional sand bed, which has metal precipitates on the top surface, and may be resolubilized by algae and bacterial action. All of this is just a crazy thought, of course.
And I wondered what you thought of its potential as a calcium reactor, denitrator, and general capacity to hold heavy metals before perhaps having to be replaced a la Dr. Shimek (assuming such measures are needed in terms of binding by organic chelators and rendering free heavy metals less toxic)? I mean, could you take a shot at the potential for long term storage of heavy metals in such a device?