Acid Omega 3

[decasei]

I would want to understand the importance and of the role of acids Omega 3 and the glutammina and the arginina in the calcification of corals. I make excuses for my English not corrected.
Thanks.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I presume that you mean omega 3 unsaturated fatty acids, glutamic acid, and arginine.

Organics play a substantial role in calcification, although exactly how is generally unknown.

From this article:

The Chemical & Biochemical Mechanisms of Calcification in Corals
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/apr2002/chem.htm


"The Role of Organics

Organic molecules are known to play a substantial role in the formation of calcium carbonate in many organisms, including abalone shells and other mollusk shells. These materials can be proteins, glycoproteins, mucopolysaccharides, and phospholipids (and likely others that have not yet been identified). They help to induce the nucleation and growth of aragonite and are often referred to as the "organic matrix" because much of skeleton of corals is comprised of these organic materials.

In the case of corals, we have relatively little information about exactly what these organic materials are doing. The structures of some of these proteins contain an unusually large number of aspartic acid residues. These amino acids are capable of binding to calcium, but whether that is a critical function or not has not been established. Here is some speculation about what these organics might be doing with respect to calcification:

1. They may help control the concentration of free calcium in the ECF, and thereby help control the rate of precipitation of CaCO3.

2. They may control the location of crystal growth by binding free calcium and ferrying it to the location where the coral wants precipitation to take place.

3. They may bind to the aragonite crystal face and thereby control the rate of precipitation.

4. They may bind to the aragonite crystal face and thereby prevent precipitation in places where the coral does not want the skeleton to grow.

5. They may bind to the aragonite crystal face and thereby inhibit binding of magnesium, phosphate, or other ions that are known to inhibit the growth of calcium carbonate crystals.

Regardless of the mechanisms involved, the need for these organics in calcification is easily verified. Allemand et al have studied the role of such materials in Stylophora pistillata. Interestingly, they find that inhibitors of protein synthesis reduce the rate of calcification considerably. For example, reducing protein synthesis by 60-85% reduced calcification by 50%. A similar result was found by inhibiting glycoprotein synthesis. These results did not come about because of reduced metabolism, but rather by specific effects of reduced protein and glycoprotein synthesis. The most important conclusion in their paper may be that the rate of skeletogenesis may be more limited by the rate of biosynthesis and exocytosis of organic matrix proteins rather than by calcium deposition.
Interestingly, the apparently large need for a particular amino acid (aspartic acid) to synthesize these proteins is satisfied by external sources, not by either the coral itself or the zooxanthellae. For this reason, it might be interesting to see what added aspartic acid does to calcification rates in reef tanks."


I'm currently putting together an article on the role of certain amino acids (especially aspartic acid, as mentioned above, and glutamic acid) in calcification. I've not seen any particular emphasis of the need for omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids or arginine, although I could easily have missed them as I've not intentionally searched for anything along those lines.

[decasei]

Thanks you for the answer.
Based on its experience which would be the doses to only give of the single elements or of aspartic acid to gallon.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I don't have any experience with it. You can use a commercial supplement, such as sold by Salifert, or you can try to figure out a dose from such as that in these threads:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84551

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=94487