Understanding Calcium Carbonate…
I stumbled upon a forum in which copy pasted
an article there by Willam Wurts, a PhD in aquaculture at Kentucky State
University. In the article, William Wurts agreed upon the importance of CACO3
for Koi and also mentioned that even though Japanese Mud ponds have low TDS,
the Koi can still get their needed dose of Ca++ directly from the mud. This is
not so for our Koi ponds, thus we must supply artificially Ca++ thus
compromising a bit on TDS (this part is my conclusion). The link to this post
is here http://www.koiphen.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-52088.html..
But then again Ca++ is a cation, so even though I do put in
some CACO3 in my pond, and dissolves some Ca++, wouldn’t it just be absorbed by
the BCB’ before reaching the Koi? This then again reminded me about another
question you once asked me about the stability of my pond/AFS when I add some
clay to it, a question which till now I don’t understand, especially on what
was the stability questioned moreover how to measure it. But rather me asking
the wrong questions, may I ask your opinion about this CACO3 towards Koi
development and its compatibility with the AFS?
Thank you.
Ed:
Most Koi foods have an added supplement like
calcium in their ingredients and some cat litter clays also have Calcium
Carbonate (CaCO3) in them already. However, I can see your concerns about
adding Ca++ to your pond and is the BCB’ absorbing that added calcium and
taking it once again out of solution. The simple answer would be no, but then that would not be
giving you the whole representation of the whys. You are introducing through a
clay additive Ca++ to your pond and so far it has been working I take it? It
sounds to me that you are trying to add more Calcium to your pond because your
water is soft or under the recommended 63-250 mg/l of CaCO3, is that right?
I see on that forum you recommended to read that Roddy,
one of the posters, is misinterpreting the information given by the
Agricultural Ph.D. and makes the statement that, Quote: “Below 100-ppm the fish
will suffer unless they are in a mud pond where they can eat mud and get
calcium from it. Unfortunately, some of the current pundits in
the hobby confuse mud pond water parameters with our back yard Koi keeping, and
that is a mistake that costs some folks their Koi coloration and growth rate
from keeping the GH below the minimum requirements.” This statement is painted
with a very wide paintbrush and encapsulates under the same umbrella that Koi
food, make up water from evaporation and water changes have no effect on our
Koi’s growth and coloring or the adding of Ca++ back into the system?
Cyprinidae or cyprinids is the largest family of
fish with about 2400 species and can take a diverse range of water conditions
with no ill effects, which also includes low Calcium salts too, like in
Japanese mud ponds. In the wild were water is low in calcium carp eat snails,
crayfish, tadpoles, and bivalves and all these foods will supplement the fish
with calcium when salts are too low in solution and they still can grow to
become the monsters of the lake.
I doubt very seriously that the Koi in Japanese
mud ponds are only getting their Ca++ supplements from eating the clay off the
bottom of mud ponds as stated by Roddy with no other additional food
supplements. Once again we're back to misinformation to the hobbyist and for
those that are new to the hobby may even take it as presentational fact. I know
for a fact that when I was in China, fish farms made
their own foods and added vitamins and minerals to help supplement their fish’s
diet for optimum growth, so why not the Japanese do like whys. I use Purina
Game Fish Chow Food for ponds as I have mentioned before and some of the
ingredients included in the food are Calcium Carbonate, Calcium Pantothenate,
and Calcium Iodate the same as the Chinese fish farms use along with the
Japanese fish farms too. These additives to supplementary fish foods are why
the Japanese and Chinese fish farms keep their TDS, GH and KH so low. As stated by Purina and Quote:
- Multiple Size Particle - feeds all sizes of fish
- Floating ration - great for viewing
- Higher digestibility of nutrients
- 32% high protein with attractant
- Added Vitamin C to reduce deficiency-related problems
- Enhances production of forage fish to enhance size and number of bass
 |
| Purina Game Fish Chow Food for ponds: Some of the ingredients included in the food are Calcium Carbonate, Calcium Pantothenate, and Calcium Iodate. |
The Agricultural Ph.D. that wrote the article
knows that all fish farms and agricultural fish food farms add Calcium
Carbonate to their foods so keeping the water at a high GH is really not needed
if the Koi or game fish are supplemented with additional foods (Which they
are!) that will help bone development and growth. When I was in Israel, Israeli
Koi farms also did the same thing by supplementing the diet and not so much the
water.
Koi and Goldfish forage in the mud or bottom
sediment by sifting through it for food that I mentioned above by constantly
taking it into their mouths and spiting it out, but they don’t eat it directly but indirectly, not as Roddy has
stated. So, adding
additional Ca++ to a pond is nothing new in the Koi hobby. Cyprinidae didn’t
become the largest backbone species on the planet because they were touchy
little animals and didn’t know how to adjust to water parameters that weren’t perfect
in the eyes of us humans!
The addition of Calcium Carbonate is nothing new
in the Koi world and one such additive that I have seen even by professional
Koi keepers are that of Oyster Shells. Oyster Shells like that of Hen eggshells
are mostly made up of Calcium carbonate and by adding them to the ponds mass
they will disintegrate and add Ca++ back into the system…at least in theory
that is. Now depending on what
side of the fence you’re on, most say they do nothing and some say they do. But
it takes chemistry to unravel this mystery on why some say they do work and
others say Oyster shells are useless placebos at raising the GH or adding
calcium to ponds!
Oyster shells and eggshells will not
disintegrate back into salts unless the water is more acidic than alkaline in
nature. The acidic pH is what does it, which is a pH of 6.0-6.5 will do just
fine at breaking down the calcium from the shells. This would probably explain why it would work for some
hobbyist, those with lower pH and not for others because it is pH dependent. Like that of Calcium
Reactors used in saltwater aquariums, the pH is driven down by pressurized CO2
and Aragonite is used as a medium in the reactor to be broken-down for its
Calcium content and trace elements. However, the Koi hobbyist is not using a
reactor but just placing a bag of the Oyster shells in a waterfall hoping that
it will add Ca++ back into solution. You add it by the clay additive and others
do it by Oyster shells. Your way of adding Ca++ to your pond will give you
better results than the iffy Oyster shell game though.
There is another way of adding pure Calcium
Carbonate (CaCO3) back into solution that only some know of and for the life of
me I don’t understand why it’s not used more often in the supplementation of Calcium if
needed. The purest form of Calcium Carbonate in the world is something that we
all grew up with as children and probable don’t even know it…chalk! Yes,
blackboard chalk is the easiest obtainable of all Calcium carbonates and chalk
is inexpensive! By placing the
chalk in a mesh bag and then placing it by the inlet diffuser of your AFS or in front of any outlet tube, it will then break down the chalk back
into solution once again and elevate the calcium salts of your pond. It is not
pH dependent like Oyster shells and eggshell are, and is guaranteed to work. I
remember doing a seminar for a saltwater club and told them about the benefits
of chalk in reef aquariums and they all though I was crazy because it was too cheap
and if the Calcium Carbonate didn’t come from a bottle or reactor it just
couldn’t be true! I use to place chalk in my filters sump to my saltwater
invertebrate tanks and it worked just fine.
If you wish to give your Koi the benefits of
Calcium because your food does not have it as an additive, then you're stuck with
supplementing it by other means. But make sure it is not in your food fist so
your animals’ don’t get an overdose of calcium, which is bad for them like it
is for humans. So if the food already has Calcium in it then it will not be
attracted to the BCB’ and stay in the Koi until expelled by the animals latter.
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