Lanthanum Chloride questions

[Kairus]

1) How is ATM's Agent Green product? It's much cheaper than buying straight Lanthanum Chloride, and cheaper than other Lanthanum Chloride products marketed towards reef users.

2) What would be better to use; a 5 or 10 micron sock?

3) Is this a sound idea: Dripping Lanthanum Chloride into filter sock and feeding the sock with a low gph powerhead (maxijet 400)?

4) Say you have low phosphates, and you introduce Lanthanum Chloride to your system, what happens? Would it do nothing? Would it take calcium out of the water?

 

[Greg 45]

There is a big thread on rc
it will answer all of your questiond

 

[bertoni]

1) I hadn't heard of that product before, but it seems to be okay from the description.

2) I'd go for 5 micron personally.

3) The reaction to form the precipitate might take some time, so I'd try to dose into a sump chamber without a substrate, and catch the precipitate at the output, to give the chemical more time to react.

4) Lanthanum chloride might take some alkalinity out of the water, but it won't remove calcium.

 

[Kairus]

Would a 1 micron sock cause too much of a problem? I was thinking I could filter it through a 10 and a 1 micron sock just in case, or a 10 and a 5. I'm just not sure if I can get any reasonable flow through a 1 micron sock.

 

[bertoni]

I haven't used a 1 micron sock, so I can't help there. You could try it, but that might be a very low-flow option.

 

[Cbsailor11]

Just watched
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWUFs0WcjV0
Looks like it does remove Calcium but he doesn't say how much.

 

[Cbsailor11]

And from their website:
"Agent Green initiates an ion exchange , using calcium to bind phosphate into insoluble beads. "
I have looking into using LaCL, I will check more about this product.

 

[bertoni]

Hmm, I thought another page said it was based on lanthanum chloride. Strange.

 

[Cbsailor11]

Bertoni- your correct, From their product desc..•Professional Lanthanum Chloride Formula

 

[Kairus]

Yeah there's not a whole lot of information about it on this forum and other reef forums. They say it's Lanthanum Chloride, maybe they mixed things up and think it removes calcium? It's not like they've invented the product, I'm sure it's just a product they put their name on.

 

[bertoni]

Well, if it's not just lanthanum chloride, I don't know whether it'd be safe or not. If it is lanthanum chloride, it's not going to remove any significant amount of calcium.

 

[Cbsailor11]

I agree with bertoni. I may run some in my tank and record Ca levels just for see if there is a measurable drop.

 

[bertoni]

You could dose some into a 1g container of fresh saltwater, too, if you're worried.

 

[tmz]

They are confusing calcium and carbonate. Lanthanum will use some carbonate ( alkalinity) when PO4 is low; not calcium. Lanthum forms lantanum phospahte and/or lanthanum carbonate when used in salt water aquariums. They also state if calcium drops, pH drops; that's not true either.They've got it wrong.

 

[Philly guy]

1) How is ATM's Agent Green product? It's much cheaper than buying straight Lanthanum Chloride, and cheaper than other Lanthanum Chloride products marketed towards reef users.

I question the remark about it being much cheaper than Lanthanum Chloride. The prices that I am seeing for Agent Green are between $9 and $15 for a 4 oz. bottle. I paid $27 for a full quart of Lanthanum Chloride at the local pool supply store.

 

[Kairus]

1) How is ATM's Agent Green product? It's much cheaper than buying straight Lanthanum Chloride, and cheaper than other Lanthanum Chloride products marketed towards reef users.

I question the remark about it being much cheaper than Lanthanum Chloride. The prices that I am seeing for Agent Green are between $9 and $15 for a 4 oz. bottle. I paid $27 for a full quart of Lanthanum Chloride at the local pool supply store.

Oh it's certainly not cheaper per amount of Lanthanum Chloride, but the overall price on it is cheap. I'm not going to need that much of it, so I'd rather pay $10 than $27 and have a ton of Lanthanum Chloride that I have no use for. I couldn't find any place selling small amounts of LC.