Seachem | Calcification

Posted by gerard on November 8, 2008 under Products & Reviews | Be the First to Comment

Seachem just released a premium line of reef products.  Here’s the rundown on the first one we looked at.  It’s called Calcification

Calcium and carbonates are essential to all coral growth. If either becomes deficient, coral growth will cease, followed by a rapid decline in coral health.

Natural reef waters contain about 390 mg/L of calcium.  There is no valid scienti?c reason to exceed that concentration in the reef aquarium. To do so does not significantly impact on corals, but it does make it more dif?cult to maintain an adequate alkalinity of 4–6 meq/L.  Natural sea water has an alkalinity of about 2.5 meq/L, but this is generally not adequate buffering for a closed system. High ionic calcium concentrations (above 400 mg/L) and adequate alkalinity (about 5 meq/L) are not easily compatible, particularly if magnesium is low (see balance ™ and ions™).

Calcification™ is a concentrated (140,000 mg/L) optimized blend of ionic and bioavailable gluconate-complexed calcium designed to restore and maintain calcium to levels found in natural seawater, without affecting pH. These two forms of calcium are combined in calcification™ to provide the hobbyist with a convenient way to ensure peak coral growth and health. 

Ionic calcium is readily available, while the gluconate-complexed calcium confers several benefits. The uncharged calcium in calcification™ is readily absorbed with less physiological work than is required for the absorption of ionic calcium. Using calcification™, it is not necessary to maintain the excessively high concentrations of calcium (about 450 mg/L or more) often recommended by others. In fact, excellent growth of corals and coraline algae is achieved with total calcium concentrations as low as 300 mg/L. Used up to four times recommended maintenance dose, the gluconate polymer will not accumulate or encourage the growth of undesirable algae. The polymer itself is bene?cial as a food source not only to the corals and other invertebrates, but also to denitrifying bacteria, actually promoting the natural anaerobic denitri?cation process in live rock and other substrate. Furthermore, the use of this gluconate polymer allows calcium, strontium, and magnesium to be utilized more readily than they would otherwise and also helps to stabilize them in solution without depleting alkalinity.

Some prefer not to use complexed calcium because of concern about adding organics to the aquarium. This is not a valid concern. The amount of organics added with complexed calcium is insignificantly small when compared to the organics released by most reef creatures, even in a no feed, no nutrients approach. Since complexed calcium products employ lactate or gluconate, the naive misconception that these products contain sugars has arisen. While these components are related to sugars, they are oxidized aldehydes and do not react or behave as sugars. Polygluconate contains no nitrogen or phosphorous, thus it is biologically impossible for it to lead to algae growth in a properly maintained reef system. 

Unlike competing products that require multi-day interval dosing when combined with carbonate supplements, calcification™ can be dosed daily and within minutes of our eight.four™ as  well as the entire aquavitro ™ reef line.

see more at www.aquavitro.com

Fish o’ the day | Coral Beauty Angel

Posted by gerard on October 17, 2008 under Saltwater Fish | Be the First to Comment

The Twospined Angelfish, Dusky Angelfish, or Coral Beauty (Centropyge bispinosa), is an omnivorous marine angelfish. Some individuals have a dark purplish blue body with yellow to red stripes, and usually an electric blue rim; in others are orange stripes dominate, with the purple distributed in spots. Some bright orange forms are very similar in appearance to the golden angelfish, Centropyge aurantia.  The twospined angelfish is native to the Indo-Pacific where it lives in coral reefs and lagoons. It reaches a maximum length of 3 inches (8 cm). It eats algae.

When kept in an aquarium they are distributed throughout the tank. They prefer reef tanks over fish only tanks, but are suitable for both. This species does not seem to be suitable for beginners, as the difficulty is rated high.

Coral o’ the day | Zoanthids

Posted by gerard on October 2, 2008 under Reef Info | Be the First to Comment

Zoanthids are my first foray into soft coral.  I chose to start with them because they are very colorful and from what I hear, they are easy to take care of.  While I am still waiting for them to grow, they supposedly grow rather rapidly.

A couple things you are going to want to make sure of are:

1. That you have enough light in your aquarium.  If you have a nano aquarium and are running power compacts or metal halide’s you should be fine for these types of soft coral.  

2. They do require phytoplankton for food so you should make sure you have that on hand as well.  Usually you can buy that by the bottle at your local fish store.

3. Lastly you will want to check your iodine/iodide levels to make sure they are in safe ranges.  I use Seachem’s Reef Iodide which is a safer alternative to iodine.

Other than that so far things are going well.  My little frags are still going strong after 2 weeks.  I’ll keep you all posted.

Buy at saltwaterfish.com. 

Photo courtesy of saltwaterfish.com