Lanthanum chloride

Which diatom filter are you using? IME dealing with the clogged DE is just as messy as cleaning a sock. Curious as to your methods. Thanks!
 
I don't remember what the dosage was when I was using the socks. I tried different dosages at that time. I also noticed that when using the socks I could not get the phophate levels down as far as I liked, no matter how much of how often I dosed. Randy Holmes Farley said that was because there was ultra fine particulate getting through the sock and my test kit would pick that up. When I read about public aquaria using sand filters with lanthanum, I thought of using my vortex diatom filter. It worked like a charm. After a treatment using the diatom filter, my photometer would give a reading of 0. There were also no ill affects from any of my animals.
I charge the filter with diatom powder and superchar norit carbon. I take 50ml of RO/DI and mix it with 10ml of Seaklear pool phosphate remover. I have a syringe pump that injects 4ml an hour of this mixture into the diatom. My total tank volume is about 550gal.
I usually have to clean and charge the filter twice, as it will become clogged with precipitate in about 2-3 hours.
 
I was using 10 micron socks. If I remember correctly one of Randys concerns of using lanthanum was the possibilty of the precipitate building up in the system creating a pool of stored phosphate. I was certain that some was getting through using the socks and had no idea if it could cause problems in the long term. So I stopped using lanthanum altogether until I came up with the diatom idea.
A while back I received an IM from another member of RC (Elliott) who plumbed a diatom pool filter to his sump and was dosing lanthanum that way. It had a nice backflush feature that made cleaning easy and he ran it daily! Last I heard it was working well for him.
The biggest drawback is cleaning the filter. I do think it's easier than cleaning and bleaching the socks though hands down
 
doubtless a diatom filter might be the best choice for many.

I'm in an enviable position: the filter socks located in my sump are literally 36" from the wash basin I use to clean them, so dealing with a diatom filter might be a little more labor intensive than a quick handwash for me.
 
How I would love to have a sink near my sump! I have literally been using diatom filters for decades, so I could take the thing apart and clean it blindfolded. The socks were not that much work either so it was like 12 of one, or half dozen of the other.The real issue for me was the question of whether lanthanum was getting into my system, and getting the phosphates down to where I wanted them.
If you can find a filter somewhere, or borrow one from someone, give it a try. You might like it better.
 
I have some spare acrylic tube sitting around. I was thinking about making a filter for this. Have it completely out of the water sitting on top of the sump. I was just going to fit a filter sock inside with some filter floss. I would have the top completely open and close the bottom with a flat piece of acrylic. I could just have an outlet on the side at the very bottom with a valve on it. I already have a manifold in my sump with a spare line so I would just run it into the top of the acrylic tube. I could just drip an LaCl and rodi mixture in in the top also.

Do you think that would work? Or is it too much trouble and just stick with the sock in the sump?
 
could such a device work? yes.
would it be too much trouble? that would be up to you

one thing to consider: a clogged mechanical filtration device gets really heavy.
 
Gary Majchrzak said:
could such a device work? yes.
would it be too much trouble? that would be up to you

one thing to consider: a clogged mechanical filtration device gets really heavy.
Click to expand...

Thanks

It wouldn't be any more work than changing a filter sock now probably easier.
Weight won't be an issue. It will have it's own little stand.

I'll give it a shot and let you know how it works.
 
Can't say I've ever used a diatom filter before. What's a good brand and model for an application like this? I'm guessing you'd only need to process a few hundred gph, right?
 
The only brand made for aquarium use I know of is Vortex and they have been around for many years. There are two models. I have the larger XL one.
I have been using them for maintenance long before I started using lanthanum. When charged with the powdered carbon nothing cleans and polishes the water better, so even if you don't like the lanthanum application you still might find having one useful.
 
Anyone know what the reaction between the LaCl and ozone would be?

I'm currently venturi injecting ozone into a reactor (the partial one on the left with bio balls which then feed into the one on the right with more bio balls then back to the sump) and could tee in before the air inlet to the venuri to dose LaCl into the reactors. These are part of my every other monthly cleaning program and may knock enough precip out as well as give a ton of contact time. they also dump into the sump into a filter sock as a final catch all, so I could go with a 5 or 10 micron sock for final cleaning.

Still want to see one of the sand rigs since they seem to be the best option for larger systems just for comparison.

IMG_1814.jpg


OzoneReactor.jpg
 
captain7359 said:
Anyone know what the reaction between the LaCl and ozone would be?

I'm currently venturi injecting ozone into a reactor (the partial one on the left with bio balls which then feed into the one on the right with more bio balls then back to the sump) and could tee in before the air inlet to the venuri to dose LaCl into the reactors. These are part of my every other monthly cleaning program and may knock enough precip out as well as give a ton of contact time. they also dump into the sump into a filter sock as a final catch all, so I could go with a 5 or 10 micron sock for final cleaning.

Still want to see one of the sand rigs since they seem to be the best option for larger systems just for comparison.

IMG_1814.jpg


OzoneReactor.jpg
Click to expand...


That is a great question! I can tell you that those reactors, along with the long contact time and the polishing filter sock, would be an ideal way to dose lanthanum...but I have no idea what kind of interaction the La+ and ozone would have in such high concentrations. That's a good question for Craig, William, or Randy.

I'll try and take a photo of our big sand filter dosing system this weekend. The sand filter normally processes something like 900gpm but we've dialed it down to 90gpm for the lanthanum dosing. From past usage we know that it takes a considerable amount of time for the lanthanum to react with phosphate so we don't want to flush it through the filter too fast. We use a peristaltic pump to add the diluted lanthanum to the pressure side of the sand filter pump. We dose the lanthanum at the tail end of the backwash cycle so that the filter is nice and clogged and pulling out the finest particles.
 
reefkeeper2 said:
I don't remember what the dosage was when I was using the socks. I tried different dosages at that time. I also noticed that when using the socks I could not get the phophate levels down as far as I liked, no matter how much of how often I dosed. Randy Holmes Farley said that was because there was ultra fine particulate getting through the sock and my test kit would pick that up. When I read about public aquaria using sand filters with lanthanum, I thought of using my vortex diatom filter. It worked like a charm. After a treatment using the diatom filter, my photometer would give a reading of 0. There were also no ill affects from any of my animals.
I charge the filter with diatom powder and superchar norit carbon. I take 50ml of RO/DI and mix it with 10ml of Seaklear pool phosphate remover. I have a syringe pump that injects 4ml an hour of this mixture into the diatom. My total tank volume is about 550gal.
I usually have to clean and charge the filter twice, as it will become clogged with precipitate in about 2-3 hours.
Click to expand...

Paul, do you have any photos of this in action? I am beginning to think this would be an ideal solution for our mid size exhibits (500-3,000g range).

When you say you inject the lanthanum into the filter, are you pumping it into the intake side of the filter hose? What kind of flow through the filter do you get when you first turn it on?
 
I run the tube from the syringe pump into the inlet tube of the diatom filter. The output of the vortex xl filter is approximately 400gal/hr, so for my setup it's just the right speed. I think a diatom pool filter would work better for your larger displays, and would not clog before the job was finished. You might even want to construct your own.
I noticed that you said it takes time for the lanthanum and phosphate to react and you dialed down the sand filter. This has given me an idea. The vortex filter has a small glass bell jar that holds the filter pleat and diatom powder. It must have a volume of only about a gallon or two. Now I am thinking of constructing a reaction chamber for the water and lanthanum to mix in before passing through to the vortex filter. This would provide a little more time for the reaction to take place, and might be more effecient.
 
reefkeeper2 said:
I run the tube from the syringe pump into the inlet tube of the diatom filter. The output of the vortex xl filter is approximately 400gal/hr, so for my setup it's just the right speed. I think a diatom pool filter would work better for your larger displays, and would not clog before the job was finished. You might even want to construct your own.
I noticed that you said it takes time for the lanthanum and phosphate to react and you dialed down the sand filter. This has given me an idea. The vortex filter has a small glass bell jar that holds the filter pleat and diatom powder. It must have a volume of only about a gallon or two. Now I am thinking of constructing a reaction chamber for the water and lanthanum to mix in before passing through to the vortex filter. This would provide a little more time for the reaction to take place, and might be more effecient.
Click to expand...

Hey Paul,

Your brain and mine must work the same... ;)

We just started dosing lanthanum on small systems and the way we've been doing it is to drip diluted lanthanum into the overflow box and catch the entire tank's contents in a 10 micron filter sock at the sump. This seems inefficient to me as we're prematurely clogging the sock with all the other detritus, fish waste, etc that comes along with the system water. Creating a small side stream seems like it will make for far less maintenance of whatever mechanical filter we choose to use.

I was thinking of building something much like a simple calcium reactor type chamber, with an injection of lanthanum rather than CO2. It needn't be complicated or pressurized, even a 5 gallon bucket would work. The part that matters is a very slow turnover of tank water, say one or two tank turnovers per day, to allow the lanthanum to do its job before getting back into the system. I imagine some lanthanum carbonate will fall out of solution and end up at the bottom of the chamber if the flow through is slow enough. Then I would send the effluent through a 1 micron filter bag, or into a diatom filter if the system were large enough.

One concern with this might be that with such a small volume you could easily bottom out the phosphate and be sending free La+ ions out with the effluent--I would want to regularly test the effluent for phosphate to assure that it was much lower than the incoming water, but not below a certain threshold (say 0.05-0.10 ppm).

Hope this makes sense, thank you for the ideas and help brainstorming!
 
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