So you were told your rock leaches phosphates? NOT!

[saltyphish]

depends on what material it is made of

What about man made rock, such as Real Reef rock? Do you think man made rock can leach phosphates?

 

[cracker]

Nana Reefer I have several pieces of coquina rock in my tank. These pieces always have some sort of algae on them. I can only assume they are leaching nutrients of some type.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What about man made rock, such as Real Reef rock? Do you think man made rock can leach phosphates?

If it has dead organisms on it or has been exposed to high phosphate before you got it, it could.

But it may not have either of these things.

 

[Maximus]

I think "Real Reef" rock is made out of calcium carbonate, similar to real live rock. It does have some sort of proprietary purple coating on it though.

 

[dnov99]

I have to totally disagree with the OP due to my own personal experience.

I battled high po4 for years in my system, always having to run an XL reactor filled with phosphate remover just to keep them in the .05 range, all while running a large fuge. I would not feed for days and phosphates would still go up. If I removed my phosphate remover they would rise up above .30ppm. I finally decided it must have been from my old, very porous type of live rock that was constantly trapping detritus and other organics.

I proceeded to swap out 90% of my old live rock with "real reef" rock, which is much more dense and wouldn't seem to trap anything. Within a few weeks my po4 dropped to 0-.03 range all while not running any po4 remover, just the fuge. These levels have held now for months after the switch and is the best thing I could have done for my system.

After removing the old rock, I broke some of it open and literally mud came pouring out of it, there was so much trapped detritus in there it was incredible. I think there are so many systems running this porous type of rock which is contributing to major po4 issues that people experience. This is all IME.

 

[dnov99]

What about man made rock, such as Real Reef rock? Do you think man made rock can leach phosphates?

IMO this is the best "live rock" product on the market. I have seen it in many systems and its is very dense and will not trap detritus and leach po4 down the road.

 

[Zacco]

Ok Guys. So the BRS Reef Saver Rock has been soaking for a week now. Here's the Phosphate test. 0.06ppm. Im quite pleased with this number for the first week of soaking. The water turn murky for some reason. Dont know if it's from any left over Vinegar or if it's stiill pulling dirt and calcium dust from the pores. (Adding a bag of carbon this week) Im doing a 50% salt water change this morning and will post another phosphate reading mid week.

 

[ReefCartel]

I actually have some new Dry Largo rock sitting in a brute with RO water and a pump right now. I tested it and contains phosphates. Im pretty much going to keep doing water changed until it drops low. Any suggestions?

while that is going on..Im mixing salt water in my display tank.. When the dry rock is ready to be transferred over I will also get some fresh Live Rock from one of my reliable LFS and put them in at the same time that way I can cycle everything from the beginning. Ive never used dry rock.

 

[Zacco]

I think i made a mistake of adding Bio-Spira to my curing tub. The water turned cloudy and smelled kinda weird. Kinda like yeast or oatmeal. I think the cloudiness was a huge denitrifying bacteria bloom. It would of probably cleared up but felt something was not right. I did a 100 percent water change and started over minus the Bio-spira. Added a half cap full of ammonia and a piece of live rock to the tub.

 

[tonymission]

If you've ever had to give Pukani rock an acid bath and then power wash dead organics out of it for an hour then you know it's capable of leaching tons of crap. I don't care what article says what... Stuff I got was nasty!!

 

[Reeferdood]

I have given dry pukani an acid bath and if you leave it in too long the rock will literally disappear on you!
The acid will remove most of if not all of the organics for you. I then rinsed the rock and soaked in in bleach followed by a freshwater dip with a seachem prime..
Then the curing process began...
Ironically, I still have phosphates...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have given dry pukani an acid bath and if you leave it in too long the rock will literally disappear on you!
The acid will remove most of if not all of the organics for you. I then rinsed the rock and soaked in in bleach followed by a freshwater dip with a seachem prime..
Then the curing process began...
Ironically, I still have phosphates...

We have some recent data that one of our members generated.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/phosphate-absorption-rates-in-aragonite.352405/page-4#post-4501106

He took 1 pound of dry dead Florida aragonite, stripped it of phosphate, and then added it slowly back in 5 gallons of seawater to see how much could be taken up.

He added the equivalent of 57 ppm of phosphate to the water, and the phosphate available in the water was only 0.16 ppm.

There was 359 times as much bound to the rock as free in the water.

This reservoir on the rock surface is why phosphate can be so slow to fall when you are reducing it (and, conversely, so slow to rise if dosing it).

 

[Reeferdood]

We have some recent data that one of our members generated.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/phosphate-absorption-rates-in-aragonite.352405/page-4#post-4501106

He took 1 pound of dry dead Florida aragonite, stripped it of phosphate, and then added it slowly back in 5 gallons of seawater to see how much could be taken up.

He added the equivalent of 57 ppm of phosphate to the water, and the phosphate available in the water was only 0.16 ppm.

There was 359 times as much bound to the rock as free in the water.

This reservoir on the rock surface is why phosphate can be so slow to fall when you are reducing it (and, conversely, so slow to rise if dosing it).

So would it be fair to assume that the rock is leaching even after an acid bath?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So would it be fair to assume that the rock is leaching even after an acid bath?

An acid bath is intended to remove it, but I do not know how much might remain. Depends how you do it, I expect.

 

[Reeferdood]

An acid bath is intended to remove it, but I do not know how much might remain. Depends how you do it, I expect.

Well the Pukani was literally disappearing if I had left it more than a minute or so.. I think it was fairly clean with no decaying matter left that I could see..
I just wonder if some might still be deep in the pores..

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

Remember that (certain types of) rock is dissolvable by acid. So while you might actually hit the point of total phosphate removal during an acid bath, that doesn't mean it's going to stop dissolving the rock.

 

[Reeferdood]

Remember that (certain types of) rock is dissolvable by acid. So while you might actually hit the point of total phosphate removal during an acid bath, that doesn't mean it's going to stop dissolving the rock.

I won’t stop unless you remove it, Acid will mow down some pukani really quick and still want dessert afterwards![emoji51]

 

[Water Dog]

I have had success using commercial strength SeaKlear (lanthanum chloride) to treat the phosphate issue in Pukani rock during my rock curing process.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Well the Pukani was literally disappearing if I had left it more than a minute or so.. I think it was fairly clean with no decaying matter left that I could see..
I just wonder if some might still be deep in the pores..

Yes, that is possible.

 

[Pmj]

@Randy Holmes-Farley Do siporax/marinepure/etc also bind PO4? If they don't do the same thing with phosphate that might be a benefit to using the manufactured stuff with a more minimalist aquascape of rocks (of course they could have their own negatives like marinepure with aluminum).