LaCl Reactor

I

insomniac2k2

Active member
Just finished my testing with a LaCl reactor that I made. It has nothing less than stellar results. Much thanks to Gary for his great LaCl thread:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1474839

It inspired me to throw this together. And im so happy with it, I will likely never go back to GFO.

Go read up Gary's thread, and also see my post with further explanation: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21444422&postcount=932

I drafted up a visual explanation on how mine works. It works so well, that at this moment, I wouldn't change a thing.

I have it setup to remove phosphates very slowly. My goal is to reduce the total amount of LaCl that enters my DT to a bare minimum. So far, it seems to be doing just that.

Forgot to mention: I flipped the flow on the first BRS reactor. The feed pump feeds into what's normally the outlet. I did this because of the way that they are Designed. This allowed me to add a tube inside the reactor that feeds the tank water and LaCl mix further down in the reactor and then makes it travel upwards and out towards the second reactor.

The second reactor is normal Inlet because it allows the filter floss cartridge to do its job.
 

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Reaction chamber is just LaCl dilute and tank water mix. It then runs into the filter chamber for further "reaction" and then filters upwards and through densely packed filter floss. Phase 3 is the direct inlet to the skimmer.

jrp1588 said:
What are you using for the reaction chamber and filter chamber?
Click to expand...
 
Nice, I'm familiar with those. I actually have a 2 stage reactor I use for carbon and GFO. What do you use for a dosing pump?
 
Keep in mind that if you use a dual reactor, you will not be able to do it quite like I did. I edited the original post to explain why.

I use the BRS 1.1 ML dosing pump(had it laying around).

jrp1588 said:
Nice, I'm familiar with those. I actually have a 2 stage reactor I use for carbon and GFO. What do you use for a dosing pump?
Click to expand...
 
I believe so. They are much easier and cheaper to maintain. The media is as close to free as it can get. You can use 10 cents worth or pillow stuffing and less than $1 worth of LaCl for a months treatment. I predict that the cost of my maintenance dose to be less than 10 cents a month.

That, and when done right, it is bound and exported out of the water immediately.

The caveat now is that IMO, you will never want to run your phosphates down close to zero (which you can easily do). You wouldn't want to have too much LaCl floating around in your system, should it escape your skimmer. You will need to test phosphates more often (every few weeks or so) to make sure of it.

Gary Majchrzak said:
it will be more common to see LC reactors than GFO reactors

:strange:
Click to expand...
 
Been toying with trying lanthinum for a while. Might give this a shot. I wonder if I could still use my dual reactor by running it in reverse so I could do that thing with the tube.
 
While im sure that you could run it in reverse, and you would get good results, I would not. This would run the first stage immediately into the filter floss, and not allowing for the middle between the 2 (More mixing/reaction time).

You may just be able to modify the inside of your inlet side and retro in a piece of tubing. Maybe you will get lucky and the OD of a standard piece of tubing will fit. From that point forward, everything else would be the same.

jrp1588 said:
Been toying with trying lanthinum for a while. Might give this a shot. I wonder if I could still use my dual reactor by running it in reverse so I could do that thing with the tube.
Click to expand...
 
I hate that I can't edit the original post after an hour..... Anyway, I forgot to add a check valve between the dosed and the T where the LaCl is injected. This keeps from putting back pressure on the doser.

I should also add that after doing the math again, I came to better numbers (if that's possible). My estimated maintenance dose will cost me 80 cents total for 180 days of dosing. For me (perpetually high phosphates), that's a savings of about 500 bucks a year.

The larger the tank, the better the returns.
 
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I imagine I'd only be missing a few inches of tubing with a dual reactor. I had a thought though. I already have 2 of the cartridges you linked from BRS. The cartridge basically acts the same way as your tube does. It makes the water flow to the bottom of the canister then up. I wouldn't have to modify my current reactor setup much at all. I'd simply have to get a dosing pump and T into the line feeding the reactor.

I do however keep activated carbon in there. I would like to keep running it. Anyone know if it would bind the lanthinum and hinder the effect? Would the low flow for the lanthinum reaction make the carbon pretty much useless?
 
True. If you us the plastic chamber, that would seem good enough to me. I'd be curious to see if the louvers would clog up quicker or at all in reactor 1 due to less settle time. Should work though.

The carbon question may be trickier. If I were to run carbon in a 2 stage, I'd run filter floss in stage 1 and carbon in stage 2. But I would not be content with the minimal reaction time that water has before it enters the filter floss.

I have yet to research the effects of LaCl and carbon, but deduction tells me that it should be a good thing in the final stages.

jrp1588 said:
I imagine I'd only be missing a few inches of tubing with a dual reactor. I had a thought though. I already have 2 of the cartridges you linked from BRS. The cartridge basically acts the same way as your tube does. It makes the water flow to the bottom of the canister then up. I wouldn't have to modify my current reactor setup much at all. I'd simply have to get a dosing pump and T into the line feeding the reactor.

I do however keep activated carbon in there. I would like to keep running it. Anyone know if it would bind the lanthinum and hinder the effect? Would the low flow for the lanthinum reaction make the carbon pretty much useless?
Click to expand...



Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk 2
 
Perhaps keep the first stage open, then in the second stage, full with floss almost tip the top, then place my carbon on top. So all so speaking of floss, are you sure it filters the precipitate well enough? I believe a 5 micron filter sock is the usual method.
 
Sounds like something that should work fine. It would definitely be worth a try to see how it works out.

As for if it is catching all the precipitate. No, I'm sure that it is not. I do see some making it into my skimmer. Minimal, but some. But I am pretty confident that the skimmer is a perfect final stage of removal.

Keep in mind that the more clogged the filter floss becomes, the more efficient it becomes. My next run will be slightly more compacted floss, but I'm not even remotely concerned that the precip is not being exported as its configured now.

Maybe ill give the carbon thing a try, but I fear that without the ability to tumble, it will become clogged and inefficient quickly. Ill see what I can come up with to create a separate stage above the floss.


jrp1588 said:
Perhaps keep the first stage open, then in the second stage, full with floss almost tip the top, then place my carbon on top. So all so speaking of floss, are you sure it filters the precipitate well enough? I believe a 5 micron filter sock is the usual method.
Click to expand...
 
You got me curious, so im giving it a try. At first glance, I don't like it. I put carbon at the top of the floss. As soon as i pressurized the reactors, it pushed the filter floss right up and locked the carbon right at the top. Which also de-compacted the floss.

The carbon definitely causes more back pressure. I had to turn the water pressure up about double to what it was before. I'll watch it the next few days.

Here is a pic of what came out of the reactor, and the carbon test on the right:
precip.jpg
 
I don't believe carbon is supposed to be tumbled. It breaks up when tumbled. So you usually put your floss in pretty loosely?
 
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