Marine pure alternative

[KnH]

Marine pure alternative

Randy I have read some of your post’s on marine pure, initial aluminum leaching, May need to add a carbon source to act as a denitrator, will need to run GFO for the Phosphate.

I was searching and ran across this product, Growstone, recycled glass, http://www.growstone.com/hydroponic-substrate/

My set up will be 15 gallon nano desktop tank with 55 gallon sump/under desk.

I have the tanks just trying to fill in the blanks for the rest of the setup.

Suggestions, thoughts

Thanks

 

[fab]

It sounds like this material may be very lightweight and therefore subject to being "blown around" by water currents.

A statement is made

Growstones Hydroponic Medium Give You:

• Silica release in a form plants can uptake.

that is worrisome.

Is this saying that the growstone material leeches or somehow release silica on its own or that the material facilitates a kind of dosing of silica only when you set it up to do that?

Any idea of what the grain size is? Is it about like sand? ... Or like pebbles?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Marine pure alternative

Randy I have read some of your post’s on marine pure, initial aluminum leaching, May need to add a carbon source to act as a denitrator, will need to run GFO for the Phosphate.

I was searching and ran across this product, Growstone, recycled glass, http://www.growstone.com/hydroponic-substrate/

My set up will be 15 gallon nano desktop tank with 55 gallon sump/under desk.

I have the tanks just trying to fill in the blanks for the rest of the setup.

Suggestions, thoughts

Thanks

I can't tell what sort of surface area it has and what the pores might be like, but it might work.

As fab mentions, it might release enough silicate to drive diatoms. That may not be a concern since some folks (like me) since I dosed silicate for many years.

One final theoretical concern is that I can't be sure what other compounds (such as metals) might be released from a high surface area recycled glass product.

 

[Fin]

Marine pure alternative

Randy I have read some of your post’s on marine pure, initial aluminum leaching, May need to add a carbon source to act as a denitrator, will need to run GFO for the Phosphate.

I was searching and ran across this product, Growstone, recycled glass, http://www.growstone.com/hydroponic-substrate/

My set up will be 15 gallon nano desktop tank with 55 gallon sump/under desk.

I have the tanks just trying to fill in the blanks for the rest of the setup.

Suggestions, thoughts

Thanks

Here is another option you might consider. I use this in my 15 gallon nano sump: Sera Siporax

 

[Kungpaoshizi]

These make me think of Seachem Matrix.. I inquired once to see if they were ceramic, they declined to divulge that information as it's IP... :|

 

[Fin]

The Siporax is made of "sintered" ground glass. A bonding method involving heat and compression, without actually melting the material. They are very light weight.

I saw this stuff used in some really nice reef tanks out of Brazil on another forum. They use large quantities of the larger rings and stack them in neat rows, inside of a filter box. They stack them to create channels, to help not trap as much detritus. The larger size (meant for use in ponds) is not easily obtained in the states and it is fairly pricey. The smaller 15mm rings are not hard to find on-line.

This is a pic I borrowed from one of the tank threads, showing how they are used in some of the Brazillian reef tanks. It is curious that these are not seen in use in countries other than Brazil. At least that is the only place I have seen that they are used in this way. They are in some pretty stunning tanks. I am sure much more is in play than just the filter media though.

 

[KnH]

The info says it is made of approximately 98% recycled glass and about 1.25 % of calcium carbonate, How would would glass release, leech?

It come in two sizes pea gravel and dime/quarter size gravel, Growstones products maintain between 48 and 51% of air space at saturation. It looks like large pore size is quite a bit larger than Siporax. Interesting wicking action growstone.
I was looking at this at a cost to surface area the Sera Siporax $20 per 10oz, Marinepure $30 for a 8”x8”x4”, Growstone $20 per 1.5 cuft

borrowed image

 

[Fin]

To me, that would not be much better than just going with additional live rock or live rock rubble in your sump. The reason some people don't use the rubble is that it can trap detritus. That media looks like it would do the same to me. If either is used, I would place it in a separate container that can be removed periodically to be rinsed in clean salt water.

 

[shred5]

One difference between most of these medias and the larger Marinepure is it can actually reduce nitrates.

 

[mort]

Siporax is getting pretty big in the UK at the moment and people claim very good results using it. They say their nitrates and phosphates are heavily reduced.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Siporax is getting pretty big in the UK at the moment and people claim very good results using it. They say their nitrates and phosphates are heavily reduced.

I can certainly accept nitrate for a denitrification media, but I'd expect phosphate reduction is fairly limited, just enough for the tissues of the bacteria involved.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The info says it is made of approximately 98% recycled glass and about 1.25 % of calcium carbonate, How would would glass release, leech

Silica does dissolve (not my main concern). A bigger concern might be the metals (e.g., copper) in the recycled glass that are not listed, but may be on the surfaces to dissolve. I do not know if this is a real issue, or only a theoretical one.

 

[KnH]

Randy Thanks for the reply, this is purely theoretical on the use of the growstone at this point, and anything that is recycled will have some contaminates ,I may grab a bag rinse it and put it a bucket and recirculate some RO water through it. Would a polyfilter pad be detailed enough for testing, changes color based on what it absorbers.

The ciramic rings keep coming up in searching and peoples comments , would the pore size of the ceramic rings be a issue, one point seachem makes about its matrix filter media is that it's pore size is larger thus better.

The point of all this is that in reading and searching about the live rock that is in circulation now a days is more dense and not as porous as rock that was collected from a reef years ago
Thanks

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yes, the Polyfilter might alert you to many possible concerns.

Let us know what you end up doing.