Acid Bath and Lanthanum Chloride for Pukani

[Volcmreefer]

Hello RC. I am going to put my pukani rock that I recently bought from BRS in a murat acid bath today (10:1 ratio of muratic a I'd and RODI) and wanted to know how long I should keep the rock in the bath before neutralizing with baking soda? Anyone out there have experience with this?

Also, after the bath and thorough washing I am going to dose Lanthanum Chloride to remove any residual phosphates. Does anyone know if I should put the rock in RODI water for this or saltwater? I heard that Lanthanum Chloride needs calcium to work effectively. Given that the rock is calcium based I don't think it would be an issue using RODI but I want to maximize the removal. It would also be nice to save some $ and not use salt. Thanks in advance and happy reefing!

 

[Jlentz]

I did mine in RO water. Cheaper than saltwater and I wasn't in a hurry.

I did about 4 100% water changes.


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[PatW]

The acid which is HCl will convert the calcium carbonate to CO2 and CaCl. It eats up your rock. So it will remove an out layer of rock. Use enough acid and you will completely destroy your rock. I believe the thinking is that by removing the outer layer of rock, you will remove any phosphates in the rock.

A less berserk approach would be to toss the rock into saltwater made with RODI and a power head. After a week or so test for phosphates. If you get high phosphates repeat until you stop leaching phosphates into the water.

Given the fact that the second option takes time, you might want to go the more exciting acid approach.

 

[CStrickland]

Have you seen this thread? http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914426 It covers a lot of the safety precautions for acid, and has clear instructions.

You can save some salt when dosing LC by using a filter to remove the precipitation, rather than changing all the water. Like, run a filter sock or use a gravel vac to suck up the grit from the bottom of the vessel and into some filter floss, then put the clean water back. The point of the LC is that it crystalizes the phos so you can take out the crystals rather than changing all the water like you would doing a slower "cook." If you use salt water you can kill two birds with one stone by getting the cycle started too. And you won't have wonky salt levels when you set up the tank from having a lot of fresh water soaked into the rock.

 

[Volcmreefer]

Great guys! Thanks for the link CSTRICKLAND. Going to start the process this afternoon. Just didn't want that acid to eat up all my rock. I will watch carefully. Unfortunately I will be dosing the lanthanum Chloride in a brute trashcan, so I really don't have the capability of filtering out the precipitate unless I zip tie some filter floss to the pump and change often. Might do that in an attempt to save some water.

 

[homer1475]

I did mine in plain RO/DI and LC, I only needed to change the water twice.

 

[Jlentz]

The acid bath made my Pukani look even cooler.


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[leviburns89]

When it stops foaming, it has eaten away at all the loose calcium.

Then add baking soda, use a lot. One box won't cut it.

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[Volcmreefer]

Well, I finished the acid bath and dam, there was a lot of junk on them! I think that I probably could have left them in a little longer but I couldn't see if the reaction had stopped yet. Power washed the crap out of them and now they are in 25 gallons of RODI. I am going to get a phosphate baseline with the Hanna checker sometime tomorrow and will dose Lanthanum if needed. We shall see how it goes. Hopefully I can get the tank up and running by the end of May. That's my goal because my sand says "best by 15 June". I had no idea that sand had an expiration. Guess it is because the bacteria?

 

[CStrickland]

my sand says "best by 15 June". I had no idea that sand had an expiration. Guess it is because the bacteria?

yeah. "live" sand has a shelf life of about a year.

You might want to consider your options. Even if some of the bacteria is still alive in your almost expired bag, it's a mess to deal with, and the dead bacteria are still in there - that's a lot of organic decay. If you rinse it off really well (like you would with not-live sand) you'll lose the bacteria, but you won't have a dust storm or nutrient spike.

If it were me I'd go that way, maybe you could split the diff and use one bag not rinsed, to seed the rest.