fishman1234
New member
I was gonna start vodka dosing and a lanthanum chloride drip.Also was thinking to start some Kalkawasser. Is that to much to do to a tank or should I do one and wait a couple months to do the other?
Is it to much at once?
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AmherstReef
New member
It all depends on what you are looking to accomplish
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Personally, I would probably not start the vodka and lanthanum at the same time, as they're both potentially altering the nutrient balance in the system, and it might be really challenging to "tune" either method independently.
Kalk - well, I guess it depends on how difficult your current Ca/alk supplementation scheme is...
Kalk - well, I guess it depends on how difficult your current Ca/alk supplementation scheme is...
Gary Majchrzak
Team RC
topoff for evap should be kalkwasser.
The other two methods are advanced techniques and I really believe too many people put the cart before the horse nowadays.
fishman1234
New member
Meaning take one step at a time or???
fishman1234
New member
I have tons of cyano....and I want to remove as much po4 as possible.
fishman1234
New member
PO4: .07
Nitrate/Nitrite: 0
pH: 8.2
alk: 9.5 dkh
calcium: 540
Magnesium: 1500
Nitrate/Nitrite: 0
pH: 8.2
alk: 9.5 dkh
calcium: 540
Magnesium: 1500
fishman1234
New member
I also have never dosed the calcium or magnisium. Alk I have dosed for.
Willistein
Active member
Phosphate is the only problem I see. What size tank and how old? Do you do water changes? How have you been maintaining Ca at 500+? I would start by sucking out as much crud as you can, do a 25%WC, and evaluate flow in your tank. To address the phosphate i would try gfo first.
fishman1234
New member
The tank is 125 gallon with a 55 gal sump so after all the rock id say its a 150-160 system going on 7 months, I do water changes and already run gfo. Water changes are approx 30 gallons once a week. I use oceanic salt. Apparently it is high in calcium.
Hmm,
PO4 at .07 will contribute to the nuisance algae and cyano.
You want to see it around.03ppm. Water changes of about 30 to 40% per month or 10% per week should be sufficient. You are doing about 80% per month .
Your gfo may be exhausting quickly if there is a lot of PO4 in the water. Further , the true level may be masked by the cyano taking it up . You can use more gfo and/or change it out more frequently. . Checking the effluent from the gfo reactor can tell you if it's still working ,by comparing the effluent's PO4 level to the tank's PO4 level. , If the effluent reading is lower ;it's still working.
Cleaning up detritus will help too.
Lanthanum chloride is a less expensive way to reduce PO4 but the precipitant can do damage. If you are confident about employing an appropriate precipitant filtration and slow dose method as described in the lanthanum chloride thread,it could be a good step at this point.
I don't see any need to dose more alk, calcium or magnesium. But then if you cut back some on water changes you might nerd to dose alk and calcium and kalk would do that.
Organic carbon dosing probably wouldn't help the cyano at this point and might make things worse particularly with high PO4 and undetectable nitrate.
So, if it were my tank I'd go after phosphate with more cleaning, more gfo or lanthanum chloride with appropriate prefiltering and slow dosing .
PO4 at .07 will contribute to the nuisance algae and cyano.
You want to see it around.03ppm. Water changes of about 30 to 40% per month or 10% per week should be sufficient. You are doing about 80% per month .
Your gfo may be exhausting quickly if there is a lot of PO4 in the water. Further , the true level may be masked by the cyano taking it up . You can use more gfo and/or change it out more frequently. . Checking the effluent from the gfo reactor can tell you if it's still working ,by comparing the effluent's PO4 level to the tank's PO4 level. , If the effluent reading is lower ;it's still working.
Cleaning up detritus will help too.
Lanthanum chloride is a less expensive way to reduce PO4 but the precipitant can do damage. If you are confident about employing an appropriate precipitant filtration and slow dose method as described in the lanthanum chloride thread,it could be a good step at this point.
I don't see any need to dose more alk, calcium or magnesium. But then if you cut back some on water changes you might nerd to dose alk and calcium and kalk would do that.
Organic carbon dosing probably wouldn't help the cyano at this point and might make things worse particularly with high PO4 and undetectable nitrate.
So, if it were my tank I'd go after phosphate with more cleaning, more gfo or lanthanum chloride with appropriate prefiltering and slow dosing .
Willistein
Active member
Where did your rock come from, was it second-hand?
fishman1234
New member
The rock is pukani dry rock and I know they leech PO4. The lanthanum need to be dripped over one day once a week if I am correct?
Willistein
Active member
Yep, that's your problem. A friend bought that stuff and "cured" it in a Rubbermaid tub for several weeks while dripping lanthanum because it was leaching so much phosphate. So, knowimg that, I would go the lanthanum route. Just make sure to read up on it - see the thread Gary posted. Very fine filter sock, slow dripping, take care about equipment downstream, etc.
blanden.adam
Team RC
I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree. The pukani MIGHT be your problem -- some people say pukani leeches phosphate, others say it doesn't, which leads me to believe some of it does and some of it does not. My aquarium also uses pukani, and algae has never really been a problem on the rock. Whenever I add more pukani, I acid wash to avoid phosphates, but the original pukani was never treated at all. When my aquarium was first going through the initial "algae progression," much more algae grew on the fully cured live rock I used to seed the pukani than on the pukani itself (which would indicated bound phosphates).
A level of .07 isn't great, but it's certainly not horrible. I would go the increased GFO-Macroalgae, more cleaning/flow, and re-evaluate husbandry before I resorted to more drastic measures like lanthinum chloride. Truth be told, I really don't know what dose is required to make the the lanthunum salts toxic in marine aquaria (or on humans for that matter, as we use lanthanum salts as a phosphate binder in medicine), but we know that it is quite toxic at some level. It's just one of those things I would save for an absolute last resort on an up-and-running aquarium. If it were dry rock in a tub, I'd say have a ball, use lanthinum to your hearts content. But there is just a level of unknown danger in using it in an active aquarium that would make me look elsewhere first.
A level of .07 isn't great, but it's certainly not horrible. I would go the increased GFO-Macroalgae, more cleaning/flow, and re-evaluate husbandry before I resorted to more drastic measures like lanthinum chloride. Truth be told, I really don't know what dose is required to make the the lanthunum salts toxic in marine aquaria (or on humans for that matter, as we use lanthanum salts as a phosphate binder in medicine), but we know that it is quite toxic at some level. It's just one of those things I would save for an absolute last resort on an up-and-running aquarium. If it were dry rock in a tub, I'd say have a ball, use lanthinum to your hearts content. But there is just a level of unknown danger in using it in an active aquarium that would make me look elsewhere first.
Willistein
Active member
But he's already doing huge weekly water changes and running GFO. I guess I should have stated: I would be willing to bet it's the rock. I bet the only reason it's as low as it is is because of the large water changes. Of course, there are other sources of phosphate like food.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Do we know what the PO4 level is in the newly mixed saltwater? Or the source water being used for topoff?
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