sobersteve323
Aquarium Advice Freak
I've read on some sites that you will eventually have to change out aragonite sand. Is this true? If so, I was hoping someone could explain why you would need to.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Just a question how longs a long long time? My buddy has had his sand for years and never added any.
Long long time as in never.who knows how long a long long time lol thats why i said a long time how else do you think it buffs the PH and helps maintain calcium and alkilinity. it has to release its own elemental compounds
Long long time as in never.
It does not dissolve therefore it does not help maintain anything....unless you are talking about using it in a freshwater system. For the sand to start to dissolve the pH must be 7.3 or lower and you won't see that in a saltwater system.
Aquarium Chemistry: Calcite, Aragonite, Limestone, and More — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
"It's been said a million times that aragonite helps buffer aquarium water, or helps maintain calcium concentrations, while other (carbonate) substrates do not. However, to the best of my knowledge this simply isn't true.
I have yet to see any solid evidence that using aragonitic materials provides any advantage over using calcitic materials in an aquarium. And, in the words of the chemist-aquarist-author Randy Holmes-Farley "calcium carbonate will not dissolve in the water column of normal marine aquaria". Some may dissolve within a deep sand bed where water chemistry changes from the top of the bed to the bottom, but this is unlikely to have any significant effect on overall water quality."
Long long time as in never.
It does not dissolve therefore it does not help maintain anything....unless you are talking about using it in a freshwater system. For the sand to start to dissolve the pH must be 7.3 or lower and you won't see that in a saltwater system.
We can argue back and forth but it's senseless IMO. The pH might drop low enough in sandbeds 6" or deeper. Not sure how many people have sand beds that deep. What little may dissolve will super saturate the water in that small locale and will precipitate back into a solid.
But if you want to get tehcnical, I should have said unless you have a 6" or deeper sand bed, you won't see the sand dissolve, and if you do have a sandbed that deep, some may dissolve but it won't make any difference in your parameters.