Anoxic Filtration System: Laterite and cat litter and plants walk hand in hand.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Laterite and cat litter and plants walk hand in hand.

We use Laterite and cat litter on its intrinsic merit for a speciﬁc purpose. They both have a crystalline structure, which is negatively charged (electrovalence) which attracts positive ions like ammonium and removes it out of the bulk water. Constituting that both Laterite and cat litter have the same characteristics and therefore will react the same ions under conditions that would otherwise not give positive results in closed systems if oppositely charges. Cat litter and Laterite as a substrate serve as a critical function in a planted up pond and the Anoxic Filtration System.

The Laterite and cat litter has many negatively charged sites; ammonia in the form of ammonium ions is positively charged. Cat litter is used worldwide because of its ability to hold a synthesized form of carbon dioxide and ammonia, the composition of urea from cats CO(NH2)2 that is the chief solid component of mammalian urine. We therefore call this substrate negatively electrically charge, relating to or containing matter in the form of charged atoms or groups of atoms or known as electrovalent bond. A electrovalent bond is nothing more than a chemical bond that is created during the formation of a compound (like that of cat litter or Laterite) by transfer of one or more electrons from one atom to another, the resulting oppositely charged ions being held together by attraction. The water body itself is positively charge, meaning that it has more positive ions than negative ions in its mass. All hobbyist ponds fall into this category and there are no exceptions to this rule. The cat litter and Laterite attracts and holds the ammonium ions like a giant magnet until a plant root hair exchanges another positively charge ion for the ammonium ion (this is called adsorption) and takes it in to metabolize into amino acids and ultimately, protein. No cat litter or Laterite, no negatively charged sites, no easy ammonium ion uptake.

Planting any aquatic plant in cat litter and Laterite will deﬁnitely ameliorate your plants, pond conditions, and your aquatic animals. The hobbyists that have used this way of planting, ﬁnd out that just by changing a few fundamentals of their planting habits may turn their ponds clearer and cleaner than it already is. This is because they no longer used the nitrogen tablets, as they did with their old way of planting water lilies and/or aquatic plants. In addition, many pond plants are not amenable to nitrate as a nitrogen source. The more so, since they have not “learned” to use this highest oxidized form of nitrogen because they are spoiled in their indigenous environment by ammonium, which is a great deal healthier for plants. In general, plants need nitrogen as ammonium. If they receive nitrate, they must reduce it to ammonium. This is chemical work.

Studies have found that plants that use ammonium/ammonia remove not only phenols from heavily loaded water but cyankali, carbolic acids, detergents and that a number of bacteria can be fought off with water plants. Studies have also shown that plants grown in cat litter and Laterite release oxygen through their roots and keep the substrate of the biocenosis-baskets free of decaying areas. At the same time, they prevent the build-up of marsh gas in the substrate, and prevent it from becoming black. Plant growth in black substrate is not possible.

Higher water plants grown this way are even able to eliminate toxic substances. The toxic substances that are destroyed or such substances as phenol, Salicylic Acid, and Potassium Cyanide, from heavily polluted ponds. Research studies have also shown that the roots of the higher water plants grown in cat litter with Laterite dispense substances, which are able to eradicate bacteria and germs causing illness from salmonella and enterococci. Experiments using different water plants and bacteria Escherichia coli and Bacterium coli have proven that millions of pathogenic germs are capable of being destroyed effectively and quickly, in as little as seven to ten days. With the same test, other ways of planting show the number of germs remained constant.

We also have the additional beneﬁt of removing ammonium/ammonia. Instead of just “ammonium to nitrite to nitrate” cycle as in other biological ﬁltration methods, we then will bypass “the nitrogen cycle” and its accumulation of high nitrate (NO3) levels. We must also remember that the center of the biocenosis-basket negative-charge becomes exceedingly stronger with added depth, which makes it attract a greater number of positive ions than the outer parameters of the biocenosis-basket. This increased magnetic pull will them aid in the diffusion of molecules, expediting them out of the water column. For those biocenosis-baskets that do not have any plants in them the facultative anaerobes will behave as respiratory heterotrophs when nitrates are exhausted and therefore use the ammonium ion for their carbon needs.