Relation between Kalkwasser,high PO3 and aragonite sand

[DENIZSEAMAR]

Hi,

Huge neglect of a tank and then where do you think high phosphate gone? Here is a simple photo from my tank. 25cm*30cm area and 2 cm depth . It isnot a plate rock but aragonite sand after precipitation of phosphate

Am I wrong ?

 

[dkeller_nc]

It's possible from a chemistry perspective to get enough apatite (calcium phosphate) precipitated out of the tank water to glue together the substrate, but a more likely candidate is precipitated calcium carbonate from additions of kalkwasser (and possibly kalkwasser slurry).

While it's true that phosphate can precipitate directly from seawater as calcium phosphate, and phosphate can bind to aragonite to form the same mineral, unless the tank was neglected for an incredibly long time (years), or it was massively overfed, there's not enough phosphate around to form enough apatite to be easily visible or to form structural components of the sandbed/rocks.

 

[DENIZSEAMAR]

Nope not that long. Only 6-7 months neglection. My clue was interestingly GHA only exists on those rock substrate and few live rocks. I have adequate water movement in 100*50*50 cm tank. 3 * Tunze 6045 +1 * 6055

 

[bertoni]

The substrate probably has phosphate in it, but I agree that most of the binding likely is calcium carbonate, just because of the numbers involved.