jason2459
Well-known member
I'm not sure. I used it undiluted into a diatom filter at 1 micron. Some use 10 micron and some have said at least 5 micron. Use at your own risk basically.
Lanthanum Chloride Safety
- Thread starter jason2459
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I'm not sure. I used it undiluted into a diatom filter at 1 micron. Some use 10 micron and some have said at least 5 micron. Use at your own risk basically.
The thread you listed first in your first post contains a lot of discussion and detail on La Cl including some of the dangers.
Fine prefiltration is must,IMO and experience.
The precipitant evident in the clouding is harmful; it is known to clog breathing apparatuses . Some dose directly & get by. I personally, saw a yellow tang swim through a light cloud from a hobby commercial product and stop breathing in a friends tank , attempts to revive it immediately in new water were unsuccessful. I've also seen a 4 inch maxima calm get serious pinched mantle after exposure to a cloud; it died within a few days.
There are several ways it can go wrong:
LaCl disassociates in the water . The La binds with PO4;probably more readily with
PO4---, than PO4 species with a lesser charge. Comments from public aquarium folks suggest a max overall PO4 reduction floor at about .1+; I've seen it go to about .05 or so. So, when the PO4 is low the La will bind proportionately more CO3 instead: hence more alkalinity depletion.
Slow dosing to high water volume areas helps insure a maximum amount of PO4 in the water along with a maxmum amount of carbonate to pick up the slack lessening the amount of free La which will get through the filtration. The free lanthanum entering the tank may precipitate anywhere and the effects of the reaction may case trouble. Potential ingestion via drinking water with free or bound lanthanum or eating some may also cause trouble,speculatively speaking.
LaCl dosing can reduce PO4 very quickly leading to stress by organisms due to the rapid drop in available PO4.
As for dilution; I did the math before switching from a hobby grade product to Sea Klear years ago The SeaKlear was bout 1/10th the cost .
All in all, I chose not to stop using LaCl even with fine filtration and slow doing in favor of GFO which can be cost effective when regenerated. I do still use La CL outside the tank when curing rock leaching PO4.
I certainly can't explain the marketing claims about safety but IMO caveat emptor pertains.
Fine prefiltration is must,IMO and experience.
The precipitant evident in the clouding is harmful; it is known to clog breathing apparatuses . Some dose directly & get by. I personally, saw a yellow tang swim through a light cloud from a hobby commercial product and stop breathing in a friends tank , attempts to revive it immediately in new water were unsuccessful. I've also seen a 4 inch maxima calm get serious pinched mantle after exposure to a cloud; it died within a few days.
There are several ways it can go wrong:
LaCl disassociates in the water . The La binds with PO4;probably more readily with
PO4---, than PO4 species with a lesser charge. Comments from public aquarium folks suggest a max overall PO4 reduction floor at about .1+; I've seen it go to about .05 or so. So, when the PO4 is low the La will bind proportionately more CO3 instead: hence more alkalinity depletion.
Slow dosing to high water volume areas helps insure a maximum amount of PO4 in the water along with a maxmum amount of carbonate to pick up the slack lessening the amount of free La which will get through the filtration. The free lanthanum entering the tank may precipitate anywhere and the effects of the reaction may case trouble. Potential ingestion via drinking water with free or bound lanthanum or eating some may also cause trouble,speculatively speaking.
LaCl dosing can reduce PO4 very quickly leading to stress by organisms due to the rapid drop in available PO4.
As for dilution; I did the math before switching from a hobby grade product to Sea Klear years ago The SeaKlear was bout 1/10th the cost .
All in all, I chose not to stop using LaCl even with fine filtration and slow doing in favor of GFO which can be cost effective when regenerated. I do still use La CL outside the tank when curing rock leaching PO4.
I certainly can't explain the marketing claims about safety but IMO caveat emptor pertains.
jason2459
Well-known member
Thanks for chiming in here TMZ. Yes, that first link is about the best thread to read through for anyone considering dosing LaCL3 of any kind.
I'm also still ultra cautious with the usage of Lanthanum Chloride regardless of manufacturer. That call with ATM certainly didn't convince me of it's safety especially with his poor example comparing it to using GAC properly considering it's the fine particles in GAC you are trying to prevent getting into the tank and in contact with the fish.
I was trying to understand the marketing side of it and how they can justify it's safety but didn't get anything other then trust us, no one has told us it's caused problems (besides the people that have called in with problems...), and we make it ourselves so we know it's safe.
I also haven't used it in several years and don't have plans to. I don't even use GFO anymore as carbon dosing and algae harvesting has done everything I need to keep PO4 down.
I have noticed a lot of people asking about it and see that several companies are making aquarium specific products with LaCl3 in it stating it's totally safe. Which concerns me.
I'm also still ultra cautious with the usage of Lanthanum Chloride regardless of manufacturer. That call with ATM certainly didn't convince me of it's safety especially with his poor example comparing it to using GAC properly considering it's the fine particles in GAC you are trying to prevent getting into the tank and in contact with the fish.
I was trying to understand the marketing side of it and how they can justify it's safety but didn't get anything other then trust us, no one has told us it's caused problems (besides the people that have called in with problems...), and we make it ourselves so we know it's safe.
I also haven't used it in several years and don't have plans to. I don't even use GFO anymore as carbon dosing and algae harvesting has done everything I need to keep PO4 down.
I have noticed a lot of people asking about it and see that several companies are making aquarium specific products with LaCl3 in it stating it's totally safe. Which concerns me.
I have also balanced out the organic carbon dosing(vodka and vinegar) to a point where I haven't used GFO in over 2 years.
It conerns me too since it isn't safe and the explainations are well,,,,,; at best cloudy.
Found this piece on potential toxicity issues related to apoptosis:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22213182
this is from it:
in the context of raised lanthanum, greater attention should be paid to potential toxic effects associated to the use of lanthanide-based drugs.
I know public aquraiums have used it and do pay close attention to prefiltartion. I haven't found a necropsy but suspect there have been some to support the clogging conclusions.
It conerns me too since it isn't safe and the explainations are well,,,,,; at best cloudy.
Found this piece on potential toxicity issues related to apoptosis:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22213182
this is from it:
in the context of raised lanthanum, greater attention should be paid to potential toxic effects associated to the use of lanthanide-based drugs.
I know public aquraiums have used it and do pay close attention to prefiltartion. I haven't found a necropsy but suspect there have been some to support the clogging conclusions.
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I suspect that they are touting the lack of any contaminants such as copper that might cause toxicity. That might be true, but it doesn't necessarily mean that their product is safer for tangs, for example. We don't know why tangs seem more prone to problems in the first place.
jason2459
Well-known member
The person on the phone specifically said that their way of creating LaCL3 makes for a product perfectly safe for all fish and inverts and other methods of creating it does not create a safe end product. He went on to talking about how corals will consume what they want out of it and spit back out what they don't want.
I don't know what 5 ways to manufacture LaCl the representative is talking about . It is made from lanthanum oxide III, a rare earth metal mined in several locations throughout the world. This is the usual process per Wikipedia:
It forms upon union of the elements, but a more commonly used method involves heating a mixture of lanthanum(III) oxide and ammonium chloride at 200-250 °C:[2]
La2O3 + 6 NH4Cl → 2 LaCl3 + 6 NH3 + 2 H2O
Here are a few more concerns about La from a source in the water treatment industry:
http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/la.htm
From it:
Lanthanum will gradually accumulate in soils and water soils and this will eventually lead to increasing concentrations in humans, animals and soil particles.
With water animals Lanthanum causes damage to cell membranes, which has several negative influences on reproduction and on the functions of the nervous system. It strongly accumulates in mussels.
It forms upon union of the elements, but a more commonly used method involves heating a mixture of lanthanum(III) oxide and ammonium chloride at 200-250 °C:[2]
La2O3 + 6 NH4Cl → 2 LaCl3 + 6 NH3 + 2 H2O
Here are a few more concerns about La from a source in the water treatment industry:
http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/la.htm
From it:
Lanthanum will gradually accumulate in soils and water soils and this will eventually lead to increasing concentrations in humans, animals and soil particles.
With water animals Lanthanum causes damage to cell membranes, which has several negative influences on reproduction and on the functions of the nervous system. It strongly accumulates in mussels.
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jason2459
Well-known member
He wouldn't go into how they make it from the Lanthanum ore that they get. I didn't want to push to hard as I wanted him to keep talking. He did mention at one point multiple types of chlorides but he didn't tie it to how they make their agent green. He did maneuver around how their LaCl3 is different then any other LaCl3 end product other then any reports of negative effects is either old data, not aquarium specific LaCL3, or not backed up with any scientific study.
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