Coral skeletons in Calcium Reactor?

[CAReefer]

Hey all, I am re-aquascaping my 225 gallon reef for better flow, and more places to put corals. In the process of breaking down the old reef structure, I mounted a ton of frags and collected 20+lbs of fresh coral skeletons, mostly Monti's and Milleporas. Is it possible to recycle these into my Calcium reactor? If so what is the process for cleaning them up and getting therm ready to use?

My thoughts are these...
Rinse very well
Lay out in sun, or soak in water/bleach for several days
Rinse very well again
Crush, then sift to consistant grains
Place in reactor at next media change.

Any input is much appreciated.
Marshal

[Diesel3443]

I believe that Dave B does this, hopefully he will chime in here.

[o2manyfish]

Smash them with a hammer and toss them in the reactor. I mix about 50% old skeletons with ARM media.

The skeletons have the highest concentrations of trace elements.

No need to bleach them or anything - Mine do usually sit in the sun before I use them.

Dave B

[Ger]

Marshal, it would be interesting to see if the effluent from "tank grown coral sceleton" contains a higher amount of PO4 than the wild "crushed sceleton". Could you measure your effluent PO4?

[CAReefer]

Absolutely, wouldn't think of not testing before adding to the reactor. The large schuran style media had to be soaked for over a week with daily water changes in RO/DI water to get the P's to an acceptable level.

[moonpod]

Marshall, you could just do that trick of running the effluent through some phosphate removing media. I think you can use the cheaper aluminum based media b/c I believe they do not leach back at the lower pH that the effluent will be at.

[CAReefer]

Okay, after 5 days of soaking and 4 water changes with RO/DI, the schuran style media is at .06 ppm and the homegrown is at .09. Both buckets are being treated equally. One difference however, is that with the first soaking of the homegrown, I added about a cup of bleach to the 2 or so gallons of water. In all fairness, there is still a slight odor of bleach coming from the skeletons. I don't know if that would affect P04 readings or not, but needed mentioning. I will let it go a few more days with a daily changes of water and see where it goes from there. Thought you guys might be interested.

[Aged Salt]

Thnx. Marshal for the update. Of course, do not use the home-grown as long as the hypoclorite odor is detectable. Bob

[o2manyfish]

I would think it would be worth a couple of test kits, to test a) the PO4 of the bleach and b) the PO4 of the Skeletons without being bleached

Dave B

[CAReefer]

I like your thinking Dave, I have a bunch of the skeletons, so I will run a test sample w/o bleach and see what I come up with. I will do some testing. In regards to the hypoclorite odor, I learned my lessons a long time ago (15+ years ago). I was maintaining a tank for a client in a high end clothing shop, got in a hurry, bought a generic bleach for the coral decorations and magnum filter. I didn't rinse them well enough and had to replace $800 in livestock.

[o2manyfish]

You can always use Amquel to knock out the chlorine from the bleach. Not inexpensive but inefficient.

I use to bleach my decorative corals in an afteroon with bleach and amquel.

Dave B

[CAReefer]

1 week and 3 w/c's later, the homegrown is at .13 and the schuran type is at .08. In all fairness, the media has set in this/same water for 4 days now and may have accumulated more P04. I tested the bleach and got a reading of .00. After thinking about it tho, wouldn't the bleach neutralize the color in the reageant? I did a direct read after mixing for 2 min. but not allowing to settle out, and got .16, after a timed read .00. Changed the water again and will test again in a couple days. I won't need to refill for another couple days as the reactor is currently off, waiting for CA to drop.

[o2manyfish]

I have been using a 50/50 mix of packaged vs Coral Skeletons. And I don't rinse the skeletons at all.

For the past couple of years, anytime my water has been tested the Phosphates are undetectable.

I however fight silicates from my tap water source.

Dave B