electrical current in tank = good

[barnett8]

So I came across this article this morning. And it was talking about this company called Biorock. It is supposed to run a low voltage electrical current through the water to cause calcium carbonate build-up on the structure. Apparently this also makes corals grow faster...

Here is the article I saw: http://www.globalcoral.org/Mineral%20Accretion%20Technology.html

I just thought it was cool, and I wanted to share.

 

[woodycb]

thats very interesting.

 

[miska]

Salt water + elecricity= bleach +sodium (precipitate)
This is the bleach manufacturing protocol...

 

[speakerguy]

This has no application in an aquarium.

 

[greenbean36191]

Yep, as miska pointed out, this works in the open ocean where the biproducts are diluted quickly, but in a closed system it's a great way to poison a tank.

 

[Bri Guy]

Get your tester out, I bet you that you have some stray voltage already.

 

[barnett8]

Bri Guy: Yes I do, I can feel it when I put my hand in the tank.

Everybody else: I didn't want to do this in my tank. Just thought it was interesting... But I guess the title of the thread suggested otherwise.

 

[chercm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13259909#post13259909 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by greenbean36191
Yep, as miska pointed out, this works in the open ocean where the biproducts are diluted quickly, but in a closed system it's a great way to poison a tank.

posion ?

 

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13264416#post13264416 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by barnett8
Bri Guy: Yes I do, I can feel it when I put my hand in the tank.

If there is enough stray current for you to feel, you have a piece of equipment that is leaking voltage. Something you need to track down before it gets bad enough to electrocute you or cause a fire. Use a voltmeter, not your hand, and start unplugging equipment till you get a noticeable drop, that will be the culprit

 

[da1jewfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13266052#post13266052 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
If there is enough stray current for you to feel, you have a piece of equipment that is leaking voltage. Something you need to track down before it gets bad enough to electrocute you or cause a fire. Use a voltmeter, not your hand, and start unplugging equipment till you get a noticeable drop, that will be the culprit

Yes, you have to seperate equipment to determine fault. I just had a light fixture that slowly progressed from a mild sting to a rather large shock... wasn't good. Put a GFCI on the entire system and determined it came from the light fixture. GFCI and ground probes are a must!

 

[Reefer Brian]

Use a grounding probe.

 

[Runner]

Slightly OT here: Only use a grounding probe if you have a GFCI. But be aware that while the probe enhances safety of the tank owner, it could fry a tank where there is an insulation breakdown that is small enough not to allow the 5 mA required for the GFCI to trip. A local guy with a large, beautiful reef tank lost his tank because of a persistant low-current flow (too low to trip the GFCI receptacles) through his ground probe -- it killed his corals.

As to the topic, I'd imagine you would do something like this to plate a fake reef rock before introducing corals to give them a better place to grab on to. Implementing it in a tank would pose quite a few challenges and perhaps be dangerous.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

posion ?

Yes. Running electric current through seawater necessitates reactions at the electrodes. One of those is likely to be production of chlorine at the anode. The current is largely carried through the water by moving Na+ and Cl- ions. When the Cl- ion gets to the positively charged electrode, it dumps its electron into it and you get chlorine gas:

Cl- + Cl- ---> Cl2

Chlorine is very toxic. Essentially like adding bleach.

This article shows that experimentally:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1975hyen.proc..417W

from it:

"Major conclusions are that hydrogen can be produced from sea water by direct electrolysis, that chlorine production predominates over oxygen at the anode, that oxygen can be evolved at the anode together with chlorine at current densities of 90 mA per sq cm, "

 

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13302255#post13302255 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefer Brian
Use a grounding probe.

That's great for treating a symptom, and no guarantee of safety. The problem needs to be addressed, not swept under the rug. Even with a ground probe and GFCI outlet, you can still get a very nasty shock from a malfunctioning piece of electrical equipment. Mixing electricity and water is no place to fool around, do it right

 

[theborgtank]

I was just snorkeling off Koh Toa island in Thailand and saw a biorock located just a hundred feet off the shore.

There was a decent amount of calcifying corals growing. I think they fragmented and placed corals on this biorock to get things started in the beginning.

In my opinion it was not that impressive, there was much more growth of the same corals growing in deeper water that I saw during SCUBA.

If all the calcium is attaching to the electrified metal grate, would there actually be less for the calcifying corals in the immediate environment?

Why not just sink a ship and be done with it. Save all the energy.

 

[badcop]

Barnett8

I saw the same thing, while looking for the end of the internet. Curious I dug deeper. I saw where they had woven steel bar into artificial reefs, and charged the steel and a carbon anode with 12 VDC. The steel attracted mineralization to it's surface up to what appeared to be an eighth of an inch. I believe the key was low voltage.

One thing they mentioned was that if current (the DC voltage) was lost the steel began to corrode. Also at a marginal thickness mineralization was reduce to nil.

It was also experimented where they attached Frags to the steel work. Initial results indicated the colony grew quicker where it was near the energized steelwork. But no real study results were published.

The thing about creating reefs this way as opposed to just sinking a ship is the money saved by not having to clean up hazmat on an old ship.

 

[tmz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13320218#post13320218 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
That's great for treating a symptom, and no guarantee of safety. The problem needs to be addressed, not swept under the rug. Even with a ground probe and GFCI outlet, you can still get a very nasty shock from a malfunctioning piece of electrical equipment. Mixing electricity and water is no place to fool around, do it right

I agree . Not only can you poison your tank but you can electrocute yourself. At least use a gfci and do the tests recommended,please.A grounding probe without a gfci can make things worse.

 

[gotfrogs]

So you can not do something like this in an aquarium?
http://gizmodo.com/5836650/coral-arks-rebuild-marine-ecosystemswith-electricity-and-rebar/gallery/1