Travertine in the tank!!!

[Roggio]

I have been exploring (dreaming) ideas for the substrate in my 150g 50x28'' I have a ton of dry sand but it's not all that great looking. It has little black pieces in it.

I bought some 18x18 travertine tiles from Home Depot today and plan on cutting them to size. I should be able to grow star polyps on them and have an amazing looking substrate. When I went through the travertine I called the manufacturer and made sure there were no chemical additives or sealants (there's not) and on closer inspection most pieces were made up of tons of little tube worms. The only thing added was epoxy to fill some of the natural holes. I ended up picking the pieces with the least epoxy.

My tank will have it's own separate mangrove swamp with a decent amount of sand in it. Bacteria will be far from an issue in my tank. I plan on having a 75+ gallon fuge.

Be ready for a killer build!!!

How would you prep these for your large tank? Am I making a big mistake?

Thanks in advance

 

[bertoni]

Travertine comes in a lot of varieties. Some varieties might have some chemicals in them that might be a problem. Personally, I wouldn't risk it. There's some older threads on this topic that we can locate when the search engine is back up.

 

[Utah Fatman]

Bertoni is right, lots of variation in travertine. My son is a tile setter and the variations kill him, some hard, some soft, some cracks when cut. All variations in the stone and my guess is variation in the chemical make up. If you get brave let us know how it works out. Might be a year before the leaching starts adding up to create problems.

 

[Roggio]

There has to be a way to test for it. I might soak it in RO water and run tests from there. A lot of people use travertine as frags. I made sure the pieces I got were almost completely white.

 

[bif24701]

I have been exploring (dreaming) ideas for the substrate in my 150g 50x28'' I have a ton of dry sand but it's not all that great looking. It has little black pieces in it.

I bought some 18x18 travertine tiles from Home Depot today and plan on cutting them to size. I should be able to grow star polyps on them and have an amazing looking substrate. When I went through the travertine I called the manufacturer and made sure there were no chemical additives or sealants (there's not) and on closer inspection most pieces were made up of tons of little tube worms. The only thing added was epoxy to fill some of the natural holes. I ended up picking the pieces with the least epoxy.

My tank will have it's own separate mangrove swamp with a decent amount of sand in it. Bacteria will be far from an issue in my tank. I plan on having a 75+ gallon fuge.

Be ready for a killer build!!!

How would you prep these for your large tank? Am I making a big mistake?

Thanks in advance

This kinda of tile often comes with some kind of filler or sealer on it. Whether it is inert or not I do not know, but why risk it. If it didn't come the ocean then there is a good chance of negative effects.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

travertine is almost like limestone, very soft and sedimentary i believe, tonnes of fossils etc in it...it is the etc that would scare me though...

i dont think i would be overly concerned with the honing process whereby they fill, smooth and polish the top of the tiles using epoxy, as epoxy is used in many many tanks in many many types are used too...especially plywood tanks and foam rock wall projects.

as for testing it in a pail of fresh water...i dont think that will work, first salt water is far more corrosive then fresh, and second, you dont know what to test for...i dont think there are many hobby grade kits for heavy metals, copper of which would be my least concern. you could certainly test for PO4 and whatever else you can get your hands on, i dont know if that would be enough to convince me though...

 

[bertoni]

If the amount of travertine is small, the risk is lower. I don't know what the risk might be, so I'm reluctant to say it'll be fine, but that's a very conservative approach. Travertine mostly is calcium carbonate, which is fine, but there can be a lot of other ingredients.