Lanthanum chloride

[tmz]

I use various means to control PO4 in a heavily fed system, including: macro algae refugia, vodka and vinegar dosing, gac, gfo and lanthanum chloride to tweak levels once in a while. All in moderation with an effort at balance and constancy.
My objective is to establish a system that maintains healthy low levels of N( nitrogen) and P( phosphorous) and C (organic carbon) and to limit the undesireable side effects of any single method.
For example:
more vodka and vinegar might reduce more NO3 and PO4 without gfo or lanthanum but may lead to too much C and excessive bacterial growth or a harmful imbalance in coral holibont microfuana,
or too much lanthanum or gfo too quickly can strip PO4 and cause difficulty as corals try to adjust to lower levels. Too much lanthanum or gfo might also lead to a depletion in alk or a rise in nitrate and total organic carbon as heterotrophic bacterial need phosphorous along with nitrogen and carbon to thrive and would likely stop consuming C and N when no P was available.
Lanthanum properly filtered and in small doses is quicker and cheaper than gfo ,ime;although regenrating gfo can keep the cost down.
All in all, I'd favor well filtered slow lanthanum dosing to keep the PO4 level in the tank water < .04ppm for a tank where the rock is likely to leach PO4 for weeks to months. I'd consider removing the rock and treating it in a curing bin with lanthanum chloride( I use seaklear) if that were feasible .

 

[tmz]

I should add that lanthanum chloride disasscociates in water to lanthanum and chloride. The lanthanum binds up with PO4 or CO3( more with CO3 when PO4 is very low) and can thus deplete alkalinity. So it may be less effective as a phosphate remover at low levels of PO4 than gfo . In either case it forms small precipitant particles that can be harmful to small fish and filter feeders; thus, the need to filter carefully. Lanthanum is used in human phosphate control medications,btw.

 

[Tony Romano]

Hi Tom -- long time no chat -- what do you use to filter? Micron bags?:fun2:

 

[tmz]

Hi Tony,
I run it "over the river and through the woods ":down an overflow drain from a frag tank through a brute garbage can serving as a cryptic zone , then through a box of filter floss ,then over a remote deep sand covered in live rock ,then into the sump near the skimmer. Never bought a small micron sock but that seems to be a very good way to go based on others experiences. I don't use it very often so I haven't gone to dripping and micron socks at this point.

 

[Reefer33]

Thanks for everybody's input. I'm just glad to see people have been using this stuff for awhile with no noticeable ill effects to their tank. I talked with Consenus_Kid and I got a great baseline I'm going to work with to slowly work my PO4 down. I'm going to use a really diluted solution of Phos Free (Leslie Pool Brand Stuff) on my doser and closely monitor my daily PO4 concentration. I think I should be able to find the right balance of dosing and keeping the levels at bay. I'm thinking I will eventually be able to come off the LC solution and just use GFO to keep the phosphate levels in control.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Thanks for everybody's input. I'm just glad to see people have been using this stuff for awhile with no noticeable ill effects to their tank.

but there HAVE been noticeable ill effects observed. Many are listed in this thread

 

[Reefer33]

but there HAVE been noticeable ill effects observed. Many are listed in this thread

Well I should say other than the heavy fish breathing, no long term effects have been noted. All in all it seems to be a pretty safe source to tie up PO4, otherwise I would think you guys would have stopped using it all together a long time ago

 

[Reefski's]

i have used it for at least a couple of years. really works. dripped into a 5 micron sock into the sump.

i did it once without a drip and the water got very cloudy and i got scared but saw no problems that were obvious.

water was crystal clear by next day.

Carl

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Well I should say other than the heavy fish breathing, no long term effects have been noted. All in all it seems to be a pretty safe source to tie up PO4, otherwise I would think you guys would have stopped using it all together a long time ago

"pretty safe" is an ambiguous assessment and I wouldn't rate it as such.
Heavy doses (and it doesn't take much!) of LaCl3 might harm clams and snails. Potentially, all mollusks are at risk. Dosing LaCl3 depletes alkalinity so make sure to monitor dKH! Dose the product slowly and carefully. IMO use it in conjunction with a wet skim water change and 10 micron filter sock or side stream type filter. Use sparingly and only when needed. Good luck.

 

[Fieroguy19]

I am glad that this thread got linked from the chem forum so that I could find it. I read the entire thread in a few hours yesterday. I have read several threads on lanthinum dosing but have not seen any long term results so it was encouraging to see that when used very carefully it can be very effective at reducing phosphate.

 

[Dave & Monica]

I read this whole string, a few times over, along with other research and decided to give Lanthanum chloride a try.

Ordered 5 micron filter socks and Seaklear, and started dripping last night.
I run a GFO, have a DSB, Micro Algae, ETSS 600 skimmer (rated for 300gal), and do water changes. Still PO4 was between .5 and 1 using Salifert test kit. Plenty of algae in the display and coral growth is nonexistent. I’ve known for some time something was wrong. I’ve dealt/solved the Nitrate issue, so here we go - to get PO4 down.

Total water volume is approx 80gal. (72gal display, 30gal sump/fuge). I started to drip 5ml of Sealkear in 2.5 liters of RO. From last night to this morning (7 hrs) around a liter dripped in. Tested this morning and down to around .03. Stopped dripping this morning and had to change out the filter sock. There was noticeable gunk and the filter was filled with water and almost at the point of overflowing. I put filter floss into the 5 micron sock to provide more surface area to catch the gunk. I don’t have water entering the sock from the return, but from the output of the GFO reactor. It was a convenient place for the filter.

I’ll test PO4 again when I get home, and continue to drip the rest of the solution. So far so good. I need to read again and figure out how to clean the filter sock as running it under hot water (reversed) didn’t seem to do anything.

 

[Dave & Monica]

Tested when I got home and was still at .03ppm. Dripped the rest of the solution in and results were PO4 was undetectable. I'll do a water change today, and change out the GFO. While doing the water change I'll blow the cryo or red slime algae off the rocks. Incredible how quick, and how potent a small amount of this stuff is. There was no cloudiness, or any other ill-effects on tangs, corals, crustations, or sponges. In my sump/fuge area, there is a lot of the yellow sponge and they were not affected.

 

[GTR]

Keep an eye on your alkalinity. I was treating about 300g of system and never dosed much more than 3ml on a 2-3 times per week basis.

 

[Dave & Monica]

I normally keep it between 8-9dkh, but buffered up to 10 before starting to drip. I checked Alk last night and it was down to 9. Didn't take as much of a hit as I thought. Since I run a Sulfur denitrator, that too taxes Alk - dosing Randy's two part makes for easy adjustments. Thanks though for asking.

 

[acorral]

I've used BlueLife product with very good results but that's expensive stuff so I bought LaCl3.7H2O... I didn't found seaklear products in Mexico instead of it... the only source of LC I found was from a chemical reagant provider... I bought the LC pure salt (97% to 100% pure):


I don't know the proportion for diluting and dosing it

Anybody knows the concentration of LC on seaklear product?

Any idea on how much should I use?

 

[[WDT]TardFarmer]

For those of you that found 10 micron filters at a medical supply store, what are the filters used for? So that I can better ask for one, the supply people have no clue what I am asking for, they just say, for what function is it? Is it for respiratory issues..

Thanks!

 

[langtudatinh01]

hi everyone, i gave lanthanum a try this pass week. i used a 5 micron sock. but i have a question, how fast do you let the water go through the sock? i only use a maxi jet 1200 to push the water through, what i am dealing with now is the precipitation in the tank and not the sock. seem like the solution just move through the sock if you run water too fast and precipitate within the tank. i dripped the solution very slow into the sock at the rate about 1 drop per second. Thanks for your help.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

For those of you that found 10 micron filters at a medical supply store, what are the filters used for? So that I can better ask for one, the supply people have no clue what I am asking for, they just say, for what function is it? Is it for respiratory issues?

No.

Dialysis... as in kidney.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

hi everyone, i gave lanthanum a try this pass week. i used a 5 micron sock. but i have a question, how fast do you let the water go through the sock? i only use a maxi jet 1200 to push the water through, what i am dealing with now is the precipitation in the tank and not the sock. seem like the solution just move through the sock if you run water too fast and precipitate within the tank. i dripped the solution very slow into the sock at the rate about 1 drop per second. Thanks for your help.

I'm not sure I understand this question.
A drip rate of 1 drop per second into a 5 micron sock should be fine with almost any water flow from returns.
If you see precipitate or cloudiness in the aquarium you're either dripping too much or it's too concentrated. Slowing the drip rate will help prevent cloudiness, too. Make sure to keep your skimmer running during the treatment.

 

[jgwinner]

Wow, I grew up in Fairbanks!

How much Lanthum did you drip? Did you dilute it?

I just did it myself, although I didn't get as much precipitate as you did.

I have a 120G reef, 1 small birdnest frag, 1 open brain frag, a big carpet anenome, 9 fish. "Old tank syndrome" ... can't keep any frags alive. Most water tested OK, but I didn't check phosphate.

Well, turns out it's really high.

I think I misunderstood the Phosphate test. I got about 1ppm in testing, but after about an hour got black precipitate in the test so I assumed it was off the chart. I used both Salifert (probably expired) and Seachem. Both precipitated after about an hour or so.

So I put in 3ml diluted into 2L (soda bottle) into a bucket with a protein skimmer and a 10m filter bag. I dripped it into the 10m filter bag. The bucket was fed with a Maxi-Jet 1200, from sump water, and the output went through another filter bag into the sump and through another protein skimmer.

My idea was to use this external bucket to mix and precipitate the Lanthum before it went back in the tank, sort of a 7G 'reactor'.

The protein skimmers both went nuts. I dumped out at least 5 gallons of wet foam - looked like water.

Now, I read about .3 or .5ppm, although after a day I do get some precipitate as well. But it does seem lower.

The next day I tried dripping in about 3ml more, and nothing happened - no precipitate, no foaming of the PS. I ran carbon for 4 days and did about 25G of water change, and am set to do 40G more this weekend.

I'm geting some tissue recession in my small birdsnest. Coraline started growing on the tank walls more, and the polyps in a polyp frag finally came out. I'm hoping the tissue recession will reverse. The open brain frag is doing fine.

I do have a blue tang but he didn't show much distress. Small live rock sponges seemed to survive. Some Mushroom corals look ok.

The blasted Aiptasia is doing fine :angryfire:

== John ==​