How much Aluminum will it leach? Let's guess

[MartinWaite]

This thread makes for interesting reading but here is one or two points I'd like to make.
According to your first post your spreadsheet shows you had a slight reading of Al for 3 months prior to the test this shows that something is putting Al into your system ad hoc.
You are saying and I don't dispute it, that your yellow Fiji leather had a reaction but what changes did you make at the same time i. e.
You removed your ozone generator which would have knock on effects.
Your ATS (turf Scrubber) failed again this would cause a reaction from your livestock and cause your nutrients figures to change.
What else has changed within this timeframe that would have an effect on your system and it's livestock from the minuscular to the larger inhabitants.

I found this a good read http://www.cermedia.com/blog.php as long as the link works.

 

[jason2459]

This thread makes for interesting reading but here is one or two points I'd like to make.
According to your first post your spreadsheet shows you had a slight reading of Al for 3 months prior to the test this shows that something is putting Al into your system ad hoc.
You are saying and I don't dispute it, that your yellow Fiji leather had a reaction but what changes did you make at the same time i. e.
You removed your ozone generator which would have knock on effects.
Your ATS (turf Scrubber) failed again this would cause a reaction from your livestock and cause your nutrients figures to change.
What else has changed within this timeframe that would have an effect on your system and it's livestock from the minuscular to the larger inhabitants.

I found this a good read http://www.cermedia.com/blog.php as long as the link works.

Nothing changed that hadn't changed before with no ill reactions. My ozone additions are very very small. Using a 50mg/m ozone generator set to 25% and sometimes ran for only a couple hours a day.

I've also gone months (to year) at a time with out any algae harvesting of any kind. To me its just one piece.

I have more numbers coming and testing to be done. This thread is far from over.

 

[scardall]

This thread makes for interesting reading but here is one or two points I'd like to make.
According to your first post your spreadsheet shows you had a slight reading of Al for 3 months prior to the test this shows that something is putting Al into your system ad hoc.
You are saying and I don't dispute it, that your yellow Fiji leather had a reaction but what changes did you make at the same time i. e.
You removed your ozone generator which would have knock on effects.
Your ATS (turf Scrubber) failed again this would cause a reaction from your livestock and cause your nutrients figures to change.
What else has changed within this timeframe that would have an effect on your system and it's livestock from the minuscular to the larger inhabitants.

I found this a good read http://www.cermedia.com/blog.php as long as the link works.

Great link and worth a read. I do have one complaint on the marine pure block. It is a bit crumbly if damaged-not as hard as I expected. Still like to use it as intended.

 

[jason2459]

What I find interesting is Brightwell says they do not fire their media which eliminates the possibility of Al leaching and Cermedia saying they fire their media to eliminate Al from leaching. Someone is wrong or both are.

"There are ceramic bio-media products on the market that are not fired, with claims that these products do not leach aluminum because they have not been fired. This statement goes against basic chemistry rules and logic."

 

[Scott Campbell]

What I find interesting is Brightwell says they do not fire their media which eliminates the possibility of Al leaching and Cermedia saying they fire their media to eliminate Al from leaching. Someone is wrong or both are.

"There are ceramic bio-media products on the market that are not fired, with claims that these products do not leach aluminum because they have not been fired. This statement goes against basic chemistry rules and logic."

Unfired ceramic material is just clay. It would dissolve in water. Fired ceramic media would still leach aluminum if the pH was either low or high enough unless the ceramic media was somehow absent alumina. I would vote that both are wrong. But I still think the degree of aluminum solubility is hugely dependent on pH and most fired ceramic media should be fine at a pH close to 8.0.

 

[Reefcowboy]

Lol. This thread basically makes me think I'm better off not using any of these bricks... When they came out we all thought they would end the need to use lots of LR, but this Al leaching problem although not proven guilty of anything does give us all bad thoughts of issues long term.

Clearly some statements are missleading with the fire or not fired process as well. I guess we will all find out soon, but I was hoping brightwell to be a good alternative with the Al problem since Marine Pure does seem to elevate those levels as many have reported.

BRS is doing more tests with the blocks during nitrification, but so far they seem to have been a bit disspointing(although initial testing was admittedly faulty by BRS).

 

[jason2459]

Yeah, I've added several things to my testing. Put it this way. I now have 5 buckets of water in my basement...

 

[jason2459]

And FWIW, I still think they are a great way to add a lot of surface area in a small space if space is limited.

 

[slicko]

moral of this story, buy siporax.

 

[sebastiaan1985]

Great write up, I have one block of MarinePure in the usmp of my 40 gallon. Currently running/curing in NSW, since plumbing is not finished yet, I have water cycling in my sump, so bacteria will form within the block.
I do agree with the blocks being hard to handle, they crumble easily, but once in the sump, that is no longer an issue.

Very curious as to see what happens with the rest of the tests you are doing.

 

[jason2459]

moral of this story, buy siporax.

From what I've seen to make those affective you need quite a good amount of it a d space especially as the tank size gets bigger.

Rock works too. I'm also playing around with Seachem pond matrix which is a pumice stone. Everything has a pro and con.

 

[jason2459]

Fwiw took this picture this morning where I used to have huge sponge thats been growing since 2009

What it looked like before adding the blocks

And just recently finding some new growth

 

[jason2459]

From what I just read from another poster that spoke to Marine Pure reps at RAP they tried to explain they had a bad batch of media that may leach Al which is probably why BRS found the product to leach Al. I call complete BS as that tells me they've had supposed QC issues for well over a year.

But just to make sure I'm buying another brick that should be properly fired now that their previous issue has been caught. That pushes back my experiment back a bit but want to make sure there's no excuses.

I still have my other side experiment going and will soon have results on if there's now Al in my one bucket to see if GFO can help remove it.

 

[Joe Rice]

Another data point, for what it's worth:

I've had a MarinePure 4x8x8 block in a very low flow area of my sump since I started my tank about 20 months ago. My nitrates are almost always zero. Of course, I can't say for sure that that's due to the MP block.

I recently sent a couple of water samples to ICP-analysis.com. Aluminum came back at 0.07 and 0.08 ppm. I use IO Reef Crystals salt.

 

[jason2459]

So, cool, good timing. I have a new Marine Pure Block coming that is newly made and not part of their supposed random issue batches that may leach Al. So, we will see.

On another point... my bucket with the brightwell dimpled brick in it that's been running for a while now has had it's water tested before brick and after.


Here's some significant changes with the before brick on left and after Brick on right:

I did turn off the recirculating pump 24 hours before taking a sample to let anything suspended settle and filtered.

So, now what I'm most curious in is GFO's ability to remove the Al. I know it will impact the SI which surprised me with the level it increased too.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The Al and Si rise surprise me as well. Those are quite significant.

 

[jason2459]

The Al and Si rise surprise me as well. Those are quite significant.

Yes, quite unmistakable and only thing I'm sure I would get back as an argument is the brick wasn't made properly. Both MarinePure and Brightwell have claimed production issues.

So, I also have a new brightwell dimpled brick as well to go with the new marine pure block. It will also give me a chance to get a second test on the leachability of the brightwell block and a second and third test on GFO's capabilities to remove Al. Assuming of course the new blocks/bricks are manufactured properly and still leach Al.

 

[Scott Campbell]

Yes, quite unmistakable and only thing I'm sure I would get back as an argument is the brick wasn't made properly. Both MarinePure and Brightwell have claimed production issues.

So, I also have a new brightwell dimpled brick as well to go with the new marine pure block. It will also give me a chance to get a second test on the leachability of the brightwell block and a second and third test on GFO's capabilities to remove Al. Assuming of course the new blocks/bricks are manufactured properly and still leach Al.

All the reviews I see about the Brightwell bricks indicate the bricks just crumble apart. Apparently much worse than even the MarinePure bricks. With that much silica showing up in the tests - wouldn't you assume it was just particulates? That is a huge amount of silica and the silica/alumina ratio is reasonable for a ceramic material.

 

[jason2459]

I tried to eliminate particulates from getting in the sample through a 24hour settling and filtered with a 1um filter. Maybe I should have used my .25um filter?

But all possibilities and will find out again with another test with a newer brick.

Brightwell said they had production issues causing some fall apart easier and to leach. The brick that is in my sump does seem to erode more then the plate I have.

 

[jason2459]

Here's some thoughts and my hypothesis is the GFO is going to reduce the Al levels in that bucket with the bright well brick. Mainly through observations of my tank and it's levels of Al, mass die off of sponges, Si levels, and spurring of new sponge growth everywhere. But I also do change ~1% of my water daily that could have helped reduce levels along with Algae harvesting that may uptake some Al?

Here's some charting of my 180 that had a massive reduction of a large sponge that is picture above in post #392 after all these blocks and such was introduced. I can not say 100% it was the media but I can guess that the Sponges did not like the Al levels that were introduced. Either through Al levels or particulate that irritated or interfered with their growth and functions I do not know.

But as I introduced some GFO back into my tank even though my PO4 has always been very low <0.09 I wanted to see how it may effect Al levels and if the sponges were to come back. Which if you see in the current pictures of my anemones above also in post #392 there's a lot of little sponge growth coming back. At the time of the picture the Al levels were greatly reduced from their peak and even though Si numbers look like they are non-exictent I think they are being consumed as fast as they are being added either by the sponges, diatoms which I have lots of as seen under a microscope, or GFO.


You can see exactly when I added the Media just after 5/1/2016 (first post of this thread) which 5/19/2016 is when they analyzed the sample I sent pre-ceramic media. Spike in both Al and Si correlate with the increase in the 5g bucket.