2smokes
In Memoriam
I open this thread to talk about the abilityes of calcium to bond on to phosphates.Ive read once that Ferrous oxide works good but in fresh water with a ph smaller than 7 and that calcium works just as good at bonding phosphates but in water with ph bigger than 7(like the saltwater is).Somme sayd there is no proof that calcium bonds to fosfates efficiently.I think its wrong and i also think that in nature on reefs the calcium is the ones that bonds the phosphate not the GFO(wich is plain rust ,ferrous oxide).I dont say that GFO dont work to bond phosphates ,my goal is to demonstrate that calcium is better.So if you have an aquarium and you use GFO then add dry rock.That rock will start to leak phosphates and it will get covered in cyano no matter you have no phosphates in the water column because you use GFO.Only calcium can resolve the stone leaking phosphates problem.Calcium could come from the salt ,from water changes ,from adding kalk or running a calcium reactor.It also doesnt matter if the rock was soaked in acid or chlorine or that was baked(dont bake the stone too much because you will turn it into kalk ).It doesnt matter because thoose organics that the stone is leaking are inorganic phosphates and embeded in the rock.So the proof that calcium binds extremely well to phophates is this :best antikalk(descaler) that is in use for home and industrial purposes is the polyphosphate filter.Calcium bonds at an extremely high rate to these phosphates.This is whats happen in nature as well where theres no GFO reactor,calcium bonds the phosphates and ,,cement,, them.The polyphosphate filter is not for aquarium use but ive post it as an example on how calcium bonds to phosphates verry efficient.
On a side note ,somme people reccomend using CaCO3 to bind phosphated but thats not soluble in water.Adding powder sand to the aquarium wont bind the phosphates because the calcium is too stable as CaCO3 and will not break in to form otther chemical compounds.Kalk reacts with phosphoric acid creating a sediment mineral called monetite .This is the reaction . H3PO4 + Ca(OH)2 → CaHPO4