Lanthanum chloride

[Gary Majchrzak]

I'll 'fess up:

I'll 'fess up:

I sold my Hanna colorimeter.

I dose LnCl3 based on what I see going on in my aquarium visually (ie: growth rates of corals and algae). I believe the desired range for best coral growth is .02- .06ppm. (It's posted somewhere in the beginning of this thread.) My initial dilution/dosing regiman was 5ml of LnCl3 into one litre of freshwater. I dose this dilute solution directly into a 10 micron sock until the sock clogs. The amount of dilute solution used will vary accordingly.
I never dose LnCl3 unless doing a water change.

think of it this way:
I use this product to enhance my water change. When I do a water change I'm going after PO4.

 

[Elliott]

I dose about the same, 20 cc per gallon of RO water

I use my Hanna photometer very little any more and also rely on just looking at algae and coral growth, although it comes in handy when trying to diagnose a problem

btw I like that big imperator you have, looks so cool in that reef, nice display!

 

[Tony Romano]

Natural Chemistry PHOS FREE is reef safe? Just double checking....

Thanks

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I've never heard of that brand, Tony.

I would ask your question in the Reef Chemistry Forum.

 

[tmz]

Tony,
Tried to look up the mds( material data sheet) but it's not listed on the parent co's list. So I have no idea what's in phos free. Maybe if you contact the folks at Knorr you could get a listing of contents from tem or better yet access to a and mds sheet. Then folks might be able to help. here is the link :

http://www.knorrsystems.com/msds.asp

 

[Gravesj1s]

Ha! Thats awesome Gary.I dont think I would have admitted it in this forum but I take a very similar approach. I dont test Po4 and use visual observation to whats going on.In fact the big 3 for me are Kh,salinity and temp.As a precautionary measure I monitor ph and Tds,thats pretty much it for me but the occasional Mg ,Ca.

Your reef is very inspiring,I hope I will be fortunate enough to meet you someday and see it first hand.-Steve

 

[Conesus_Kid]

Tony-

That's the brand that I use. I think it's actually diluted much more than the SeaKlear brand, as I have to use larger amounts than what Gary's listed in this thread to see any results. I have had no ill effects to fish, corals, or inverts using this product.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I purchase my 10 micron mechanical filters at a local medical supply in Rochester.

 

[Conesus_Kid]

Quick question. I have a filter sock coming soon but I cannot install it on the drain pipe. If I simply place it somewhere in my sump and drip lanthanum into it, will this work? When you guys do attach the filter sock to your drain, do you turn off your return pumps after the sock clogs?

I would really try to find a way to get the sock on your drain pipe, or rig up a pump to push water to the filter sock. You want a lot of water flow coming through the sock as you drip.

When the sock clogs, I just remove it and replace. My system allows me to remove the sock without turning off the return pump. Other folks might have to turn their pump off to avoid splashing/making a mess.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

to add onto what Scott just posted:
I would never recommend turning off pumps after a sock clogs. Have a second filter ready to insert after removing the first one OR leave the clogged filter in place and keep running the pump and clogged filter until 100% of the system's volume runs through it.

Install the mechanical filter where aquarium water passes through it. Drains are the (obvious) best and easiest place. You might have to get creative in order to figure out how to accomplish it. The lanthanum can be administered at the top of the drains- where display water enters the overflows.

 

[radiata]

How do you guys clean your socks after they clog?

I put mine in the washing machine with some bleach and no detergent.

 

[MaLi]

Gents,

I read this thread for quite a bit and with your permission I have a few questions:

1. Is the Seaklear for pools same as the one for aquariums ? Looks like the second is much more difficult to find than the first.

2. After starting LC dosing do you still have diatoms on your glass ?

Thank you. MaLi

PS. I have an Elos kit that has always read zero PO4, but I still need to clean the glass every three days. I'm a bit confused here.

 

[tmz]

I use the one for pools. I beleive it's the same except for packaging and sizes.

As with any PO4 reduction you should see less diatoms , nuisance algae and cyanobacteria .
However, tanks are idosynchratic. So i suppose it's possible as green algae wanes from a PO4 limitation, say <.03ppm, this might advantage diatoms if they are PO4 limited at a lower level particularly in a tank with high silica but this has not been my experience. BTW gfo adsorbs some silica as well as PO4.

 

[Reefer33]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but is anybody still using the dosing of LC to help control their phosphates? This thread was started in 08, just wondering if there have been any noticeable long term effects from use? I'm looking into possibly dosing LC through a bubble magus dosing pump to get my phospates down. I suspect I have lots of phosphate leaching into my tank from old rock use. From what I've read it seems once you hit that critical point of "catching up" and are actually only experiencing the tanks actual output you can switch over to GFO to contain the phosphates or significantly use the LC a lot less. My levels have been at .3 to .5 and I cannot seem to get them any lower with GFO so I suspect I'm experiencing leaching from my old rock.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I'm still working with the original bottle of SeaKleer purchased on page one of this thread. Translation: use this product extremely sparingly!

I know there is a tendency among people to overdose. I see no reason for me to stop using this product as long as it's used with great caution.

 

[chicken]

I still use it but I would not recommend using a doser to "dose" it. Since not everything is know about how LC works and reacts in a fish system I live by these two rules to minimize my risk. First you never want to have free available LC floating around your system as that is where in theory you could run into a problem. So if you are just blindly dosing it you could use up all the Po4 and then it would available in the system to react / bind with other things. Best bet is to get your Po4 under control with LC and then once its down to normal range like 0.03 or less then switch back over to GFO. Second problem is really tied to the first, you really should dose in some sort of reaction chamber where you allow the LC to react with the Po4 and then it is filtered through a 5 or 10 micron filter sock. Problem with a doser is they typically put out way to much volume for the size reaction chamber / flow through chamber so the available LC will use up all the Po4 and then will just flow through the filter sock and then react in the tank and the precipitate will land in there. Again there are no studies of side effects but I just do not want that in my system. So I highly dilute the LC and then drip it slowly into my skimmer body and stick a 5 micron sock on the output of the skimmer. For me this works well.

 

[chicken]

As Gary said use it extremely sparingly. I worked the math backwards on the SeaKlear bottle and I dose 1.5ml of LC per 100g of water @ 1ppm of Po4 that needs to be removed. So if you system is say 300g total water capacity and your Po4 is at 0.5 I would dose 2.25ml of LC. I typically will not do a full dose just to make sure I do not use up all the Po4 in the system. I would start at 1.75ml or 2ml and once you dose it retest and then add more LC if needed. As I said in the other post I highly dilute the LC in about 2g of DI water and then drip in over an 8 hour period into my skimmer. This way I make sure no LC will ever get through my filter sock as there is always plenty of Po4 available to react with.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

well said and worth repeating :thumbsup::thumbsup:

I still use it but I would not recommend using a doser to "dose" it. Since not everything is know about how LC works and reacts in a fish system I live by these two rules to minimize my risk. First you never want to have free available LC floating around your system as that is where in theory you could run into a problem. So if you are just blindly dosing it you could use up all the Po4 and then it would available in the system to react / bind with other things. Best bet is to get your Po4 under control with LC and then once its down to normal range like 0.03 or less then switch back over to GFO. Second problem is really tied to the first, you really should dose in some sort of reaction chamber where you allow the LC to react with the Po4 and then it is filtered through a 5 or 10 micron filter sock. Problem with a doser is they typically put out way to much volume for the size reaction chamber / flow through chamber so the available LC will use up all the Po4 and then will just flow through the filter sock and then react in the tank and the precipitate will land in there. Again there are no studies of side effects but I just do not want that in my system. So I highly dilute the LC and then drip it slowly into my skimmer body and stick a 5 micron sock on the output of the skimmer. For me this works well.

As Gary said use it extremely sparingly. I worked the math backwards on the SeaKlear bottle and I dose 1.5ml of LC per 100g of water @ 1ppm. So if you system is say 300g total water capacity and your Po4 is at 0.5 I would dose 2.25ml of LC. I typically will not do a full dose just to make sure I do not use up all the Po4 in the system. I would start at 1.75ml or 2ml and once you dose it retest and then add more LC if needed. As I said in the other post I highly dilute the LC in about 2g of DI water and then drip in over an 8 hour period into my skimmer. This way I make sure no LC will ever get through my filter sock as there is always plenty of Po4 available to react with.

 

[Reefer33]

I still use it but I would not recommend using a doser to "dose" it. Since not everything is know about how LC works and reacts in a fish system I live by these two rules to minimize my risk. First you never want to have free available LC floating around your system as that is where in theory you could run into a problem. So if you are just blindly dosing it you could use up all the Po4 and then it would available in the system to react / bind with other things. Best bet is to get your Po4 under control with LC and then once its down to normal range like 0.03 or less then switch back over to GFO. Second problem is really tied to the first, you really should dose in some sort of reaction chamber where you allow the LC to react with the Po4 and then it is filtered through a 5 or 10 micron filter sock. Problem with a doser is they typically put out way to much volume for the size reaction chamber / flow through chamber so the available LC will use up all the Po4 and then will just flow through the filter sock and then react in the tank and the precipitate will land in there. Again there are no studies of side effects but I just do not want that in my system. So I highly dilute the LC and then drip it slowly into my skimmer body and stick a 5 micron sock on the output of the skimmer. For me this works well.

Yep that's the plan, use the LC to get down to those ultra low levels then probably pick up using GFO to keep it there. You read my mind, I would mix up a really diluted solution of LC to dose, then use the bubble magus to dose. I can choose how many ml's and how often I want it dosed, pretty nice piece of equipment to have. I do have a Hanna and I've been testing my PO4 daily to watch how it's fluctuating. Like I said I'm thinking I've got rock leaching issue and my GFO is being immediately exhausted and I just can't get over the hump of .30. I'm thinking the LC can get me there. I'm just thinking that dosing the very diluted LC in small increments daily would be a lot better than just putting a whole bunch in the water to immediately drop the PO4 and cause Phos shock. By the way, is there anything that actually shows the binded LC-PO4 floccs are actually harmful? I would think you would need an extremely strong acid to break the bonding? Just curious...I've just noticed you've guys have gone to great lengths to catch the bonded PO4.

Thanks for the update guys! Looks like this stuff might be the next big thing if it can better controlled.

 

[Tony Romano]

In addition to BIO pellets and MB7. I am dosing about 30 drops a day in my returns, using this as 2d means of removing PO4. I believe that the down side of this is cyno if I add too much. I like it because I know exactly what is removing PO4 -- I find GFO to much of a blind thing. GAC is bad enough to change every 3-4 weeks.