Has Anyone tried Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium or Carbo-Calcium

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hello all,

I recently switched from kalk in the ATO to All For Reef in a high demand nano and am dosing 24 hours a day. I am getting a bit of a daily alkalinity swing and would like to dampen the swing by dosing mostly during the day while corals are consuming higher amounts of calcium and alkalinity. Therefore, I would like to start dosing, say, 6 hours before lights on, and end dosing a little after lights off.

Does this seem reasonable to assume that the biological metabolism of formate into alkalinity would occur in within a 6 hour timeframe? Or does anyone have any recommendations on how to minimize a daily alkalinity swing using AFR?

It will be difficult and perhaps not even meaningful since TM claims the product will not show on an alk test but rather ya taken up directly by corals.
But I do think dosing during the day is best.

 

[brewandreef]

It will be difficult and perhaps not even meaningful since TM claims the product will not show on an alk test but rather ya taken up directly by corals.
But I do think dosing during the day is best.

Thanks for your input Randy. I would think the amount taken up directly by corals would be minimal compared to the surface areas of the rock and sand, but who knows. I took your advice for dosing mostly during the day, and this morning, for what it's worth, I went ahead and made the adjustments to start dosing 4 hours before the halide comes on today. So started dosing at 5AM. Unfortunately, I didn't get to test until 640AM and alk was 7.7dkh per salifert. Tested at 9AM right now before lights on, and alk was 8.0dkh. So I'm thinking the time delay for the degradation of formates into carbonates is not as long as I thought. There could be some test kit error in there, but I guess I will know in the next few days.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks for your input Randy. I would think the amount taken up directly by corals would be minimal compared to the surface areas of the rock and sand, but who knows.

I would thing so to, but folks from TM think differently about it.

 

[rmay6850]

Can you just add the bio calcium (dry) into your filter socks? Fairly good flow....
And how do skimmers react to this product?

Thanks

 

[rmay6850]

Bump

 

[siggy]

Can you just add the bio calcium (dry) into your filter socks? Fairly good flow....
And how do skimmers react to this product?

Thanks

Why not in the sump area...skimmer?
I have been using up a bucket of RS ABC+ (powder) and if I don't broadcast it I do get precept build up where I dump it.
GL

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Why would you want to add solid material without dissolving it in some fresh water?

 

[rmay6850]

Doesn’t Tropic Marin suggest sprinkling the dry across the top of the DT in heavy current??
I’d much rather dilute in RODI and pour in if there is no ill effect

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Doesn’t Tropic Marin suggest sprinkling the dry across the top of the DT in heavy current??
I’d much rather dilute in RODI and pour in if there is no ill effect

Sorry, I thought from the title we were still talking about carbocalcium.

No, you cannot predissolve Biocalcium, which is essentially just a dry mixture of normal alk and calcium additives. I would NOT add this solid in a sock. It needs to disperse rapidly before undesirable precipitates happen.

 

[RUSKI]

Some people use them, certainly, but they are very different products with different issues.

Biocalcium is just a dry mix of sodium bicarbonate/carbonate and calcium chloride. For that reason, it cannot be dissolved into a dosing solution and must be added dry.

Carbocalcium (calcium formate) and similar products using calcium acetate (e.g., Salifert All In One) have the complexity that you are tying organic carbon dosing (the formate for carbocalcium) to the need for alkalinity and calcium, and those may not necessarily be the same desired doses in many tanks.

I discuss such products here:

The Many Methods for Supplementing Calcium and Alkalinity - REEFEDITION
http://www.reefedition.com/the-many-methods-for-supplementing-calcium-and-alkalinity/

One-part balanced additive systems: Salt Mixtures

Another type of balanced one part additive is comprised of a simple dry mixture of sodium bicarbonate (or carbonate) and calcium chloride. Just as with the two-part additives described below, this type of system can be further formulated to have a natural seawater residue after removal of calcium carbonate. Tropic Marin’s Biocalcium seems to fall into this category, though its written descriptions are notoriously difficult to interpret. It costs about $18 for 510 grams (estimated to contain about 1800 meq of alkalinity), so that puts the cost at about $9.70 per thousand meq of alkalinity. It claims to add 70 trace elements to the tank, along with the calcium and alkalinity, but doesn’t specify amounts for any of them.

You cannot mix this type of additive in water prior to adding it to a tank. If you do, the calcium will react with the carbonate present to form insoluble calcium carbonate. Consequently, the directions advise adding it directly to the tank. If you do, be sure to add it in a high flow area away from corals (like a sump), as the solids are reported to irritate corals if they land on them.

If you use a product like this, be sure to keep it as dry as possible, even to the extent of keeping it in a sealed container to keep out atmospheric moisture. If moisture enters the mixture, it may allow the formation of undesirable calcium carbonate.

Continual use of products like this will increase the salinity in the tank. The rise in salinity over time can be roughly calculated, though not knowing exactly what is in it makes the calculation only a ballpark figure. For every 1000 meq of alkalinity added in this fashion these products will deliver on the order of 60 grams of other ions to the tank. In a tank with a low calcification demand (defined below to be 18.3 thousand meq of alkalinity per year in a 100-gallon tank (0.4 dKH/day)) this effect will raise the salinity by 3 ppt per year (compared to a normal salinity of S =35). In a high demand tank (defined below to be 219 thousand meq of alkalinity per year in a 100-gallon tank (4.4 dKH/day), the salinity will rise by 35 ppt in a year, or approximately doubling the salinity. Consequently, the salinity should be monitored closely in using this type of additive, especially in a tank with high calcification rates.

One-part balanced additive systems: Calcium Acetate

Calcium acetate is a product that has gotten relatively little publicity despite its apparent ease of use and the commercial availability to aquarists. In some ways it is similar to the combination of limewater and vinegar. When dissolved in water (fresh or salt), you have calcium ions and acetate ions. The acetate is rapidly metabolized by tank organisms to form bicarbonate, carbon dioxide, and water:

CH3CO2– (acetate) + 2 O2 → HCO3– + CO2 + H2O

This equation suggests that pH of such tanks may stay near the low end of normal, because of the excess carbon dioxide, but the practical experience of people using calcium acetate suggests that this is not a big concern.

Calcium acetate will also facilitate the growth of bacteria and the reduction of nutrients in systems, similar to that with folks dosing vinegar or vodka for that purpose. It will also facilitate conversion of nitrate to nitrogen gas (N2) in anoxic regions of live sand and rock by providing the carbon source necessary for the process. The equation below shows the process that could take place:

5 CH3CO2– (acetate) + 8 NO3– → 10 CO2 + 4 N2 + 13 OH– + H2O

One of the sources of calcium acetate available to aquarists is Salifert’s All in One (a product that also contains some strontium, amino acids, and some trace elements). It is a liquid product that can be poured directly into a tank with no immediate concerns about pH. The current version of their commercial product is 250,000-mg/L calcium acetate, so it contains the equivalent of 3,160 meq/L of alkalinity. This product sells in the US for about $45/L. Consequently, it costs about $14 per thousand meq/L of alkalinity. That price makes it very expensive for an aquarium with a large demand for calcium and alkalinity, but the zero equipment cost (unless you automate it with a dosing pump) makes it attractive for small aquaria, especially nano-reef tanks.

I have no information on the purity of the material, or the exact nature of the “trace elements” in it. Everything in the bottle will be delivered to the tank. It poses no unusual safety concerns. The upper limit to how much calcium and alkalinity can be supplied to a tank in this fashion depends on two factors. If the metabolism of acetate is rapid and the dose is very high, oxygen might be depleted. If the conversion is slow then acetate can build up in the tank (not itself a significant concern except perhaps at very high levels where it might confound an alkalinity test). Habib Sekha of Salifert has indicated that using the doses recommended on the bottle will not lead to either of these issues being problematic.

Overdosing is not expected to be an unusual problem, but if one makes significant additions in this fashion, the alkalinity will take time to show up completely in the tank because the acetate takes time to be metabolized. Consequently, I’d wait a day after adding it to measure alkalinity. Calcium measurement won’t be similarly impacted. Tank salinity will not increase over time using calcium acetate.

Is there any way to dry out moisture from Bio Calcium ? I live in a very humid area .

 

[Lou Ekus]

Is there any way to dry out moisture from Bio Calcium ? I live in a very humid area .

If moisture has gotten into Bio-CALCIUM, it has probably gotten hard due to the formation of calcium carbonate. In that case, there is no way to return it to its original state. It is not a matter of "drying it out" because it has literally changed its form.