Lanthanum chloride

[cromedogg33]

Also Gary of the last 3 years of posting through this thread, I've noticed your methods have changed a couple times. I'm not looking to do a reactor of any sort or I would just run a GFO one.

I think mechanical filtration appears to be the best method according to most, but I'm not seeing the drop in p04 that others are. Although I've started extremely slow in dripping in ~.5ml a day for the last few days in about 230G net water. My p04 readings were .07 on a hanna checker and have yet to drop. While I think my numbers are being masked by the dino's in my tank, I've up to this point dosed close to 3.5ml over the course of about 10 days.

This is what has lead me to asking the question of experiences with diluted vs not. I'm beginning to think the 1-3 drops of undiluted LaCl3 at a time may not have enough exposure and contact with the water to fully attach itself.

 

[tmz]

I dilute it to make small doses more manageable. It's less effective at low range PO4 binding,ime as the lanthanum takes more available carbonate . Gfo is more selective at low range.

 

[cromedogg33]

tmz,

Thanks for the reply. Have you come to a general number of when lanthanum has a diminishing return? With a reading of .07 in my case I and seeing almost no results in 10 days (which I know is not a long time) should lathanum do any good at those numbers? My tank is obviously producing p04 daily through food/fish waste daily, so maybe .5 ml a day to try and bring it down may not be enough. Thoughts?

 

[cromedogg33]

Need to mention I have not seen a drop in alkalinity at all since using it, so I feel there must be enough p04 in the water so that it doesn't drop alk.

 

[herring_fish]

I have skimmed through the thread and it is very interesting. I have not read every line but I think that I have a few questions about your opinions.

I have a 130 gallon tank with a bump bucket style algal turf scrubber. There isn't any filtration in the system. I have a 55 gallon sump that is plumbed out to the garage through a gravity fed ¼ inch tubing so the water flow to it is very slow. Right now, about 8 gallons go through the sump per day. The sump has about 8 inches of sand in the bottom and the rest is filled with a very porous coral rubble.

Even though I was feeding very heavily, as soon as I hooked it up, the scrubber stopped growing algae. It got starved out. I think that the bacteria in the live rock on steroids, caused my nitrates to go lower but without the algae, the phosphates went up.

I am wondering about going with a sort of reactor/tower. At this point, I'm just thinking out loud. If I had a tube about 4 or 6 inches in diameter and a few feet tall, could it serve as a precipitate chamber without the sock? I could hook up the water to inter from the bottom and leave through the top.

Also, are there any phosphate sensors. If so, it could be hooked up with a cheap controller to keep things safer.

 

[Scej12]

Yes you can definitely set up a settling zone for precipitate. See RC tank of the month for August 2011. I believe that's the non-photosynthetic reef which uses a couple of BRS reactors and a slow flow rate to settle out precipitate. Think he collects about 1/3 to 1/2 of the canisters' volume in precipitate every week. Seems to work really, really well. I'm attempting the same type of setup with buckets (pics posted recently); and am finding that the key lies in setting the correct flow through, and a level of dilution that would allow a reliable drip. HTH

Sheldon

 

[Chrisrush]

Been reading a lot on this lately as my PO4 was nearly 1.75ppm about 6 weeks ago. I removed the sandbed (which was soooo nasty) and have re-arranged my rock to allow for my flow through the aquascape. I bought 2 new tunze pumps as well as upgraded the skimmer pump. One other thing I added was biopellets and began dosing VSV this past week. My PO4 is now at .6ppm, a marked improvement but still a long way to go. I'm getting in some Seaklear today and plan to add it later today or tomorrow.

Looking forward to getting below .1ppm by Monday.

 

[tmz]

Careful with the sugar.It can harm lps ,ime. Glucose has been associated with coral mortality.
Snce the(PO4) has been that high it will take a while( a month or two) for rocks and susbstrate to stop leaching it back. Keeping the water around it consistently near 0 PO4 via lanathanum ,organic carbon dosing and or gfo will likely be necessary.

 

[thebanker]

it will take a while( a month or two) for rocks and susbstrate to stop leaching it back.

This is something I learned since I started dosing Brightwell Phosphat-E a month ago.

Coral color looks fantastic, phosphates are testing below .05 on Hanna, but still some green hair algae issues. I think the rocks and sandbed are leaching still.

 

[Chrisrush]

Careful with the sugar.It can harm lps ,ime. Glucose has been associated with coral mortality.
Snce the(PO4) has been that high it will take a while( a month or two) for rocks and susbstrate to stop leaching it back. Keeping the water around it consistently near 0 PO4 via lanathanum ,organic carbon dosing and or gfo will likely be necessary.

I halfed the dosage of the sugar, but I'll continue to monitor it.

I agree, I imagine that I'll be on LaCl for a couple of consistent doses to bring it down to a NSW level.

 

[miwoodar]

Neat thread. Any revisions on the mesh bag recommendations? I don't have any that I know are 5 microns. I do have some heavy duty ~10"x8" bags that are maybe 1/8" thick. Might these be effective?

 

[Chrisrush]

Neat thread. Any revisions on the mesh bag recommendations? I don't have any that I know are 5 microns. I do have some heavy duty ~10"x8" bags that are maybe 1/8" thick. Might these be effective?

10 micron is recommended due to the size of the LaPO4 that precipitates. You can find them online.

 

[herring_fish]

I am a designer mulling ideas around in my head. So far, it is just for fun. :fish1:

Ok, I know that this has been answered by a few people through their designs but I want to re-ask them in a slightly different way.
1. If I had a reaction chamber, with a slow throughput amount of 8 gallons per day, how much settling area do you think that I would need to forgo the sock?
2. What shape do you think that would be best for settling?
3. "¦and do you think that settling can even do the job?
4. I know that we are not talking about oil and water. I assume that gravity can't be taken advantage of BEFORE the settling chamber. ??? Would LC settle to the bottom or rise to the top of an even slower flow column of water? If so you could pump the tank water through the LC rich area and the LC could hang around until it has something to bind to instead of seeping into the main tank. I'm guessing that LC will just mix with tank water and stay that way.

 

[iamwrasseman]

i think once this question is answered that dosing this will be huge . right now its a PITA with the socks etc .

 

[Chrisrush]

Went from .48 ppm this AM to .15 ppm tonight after dosing a 2.5 mL / 1 L dilution over 3 hrs. This stuff is great. Never overflowed my filter sock, maybe I diluted it too much, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Total water volume is around 150g. I'm going to check the PO4 after 24 hrs and see how things look. Might need to dose again on Sunday.

 

[Scej12]

I am a designer mulling ideas around in my head. So far, it is just for fun. :fish1:

Ok, I know that this has been answered by a few people through their designs but I want to re-ask them in a slightly different way.
1. If I had a reaction chamber, with a slow throughput amount of 8 gallons per day, how much settling area do you think that I would need to forgo the sock?
2. What shape do you think that would be best for settling?
3. "¦and do you think that settling can even do the job?
4. I know that we are not talking about oil and water. I assume that gravity can't be taken advantage of BEFORE the settling chamber. ??? Would LC settle to the bottom or rise to the top of an even slower flow column of water? If so you could pump the tank water through the LC rich area and the LC could hang around until it has something to bind to instead of seeping into the main tank. I'm guessing that LC will just mix with tank water and stay that way.

i think once this question is answered that dosing this will be huge . right now its a PITA with the socks etc .

I agree - In fact I was inspired by Mike Cao's NPS Tank of the Month (August) to try my own little jury-rig... and it does work great. You have to really tune your thru-put of aquarium water... too fast and the precipitate settles past your settling facility. You also have to tune your LaCl feed at the proper rate as well. It takes some playing around with, but it definitely works well. Have a read through the TOTM link above, and good luck!!

Sheldon

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

thanx for that link

thanx for that link

I've been letting my 10 micron socks in place for one week at a time. I change out the sock when I do a water change. The sock is my system's "settling place"...and it's really easy to remove and clean my "settling place" (ie:sock). Depending on PO4 levels I may or may not dose LaCl3 when doing a water change. IMO dosing the LaCl3 and changing out the sock really isn't much of a PITA compared to the overall chore of cleaning the skimmer and doing a water change.

 

[herring_fish]

You guys have shown that using a settling area reduces the need for as much use of the socks. "¦but"¦ Do you think that a bigger, well designed settling area can remove the need for using socks completely?

 

[tmz]

The lanthanum is quite miscible so it spreads throughout the water quickly and a fliter like a sock stops only the precipitant;not free lanthanum . Timing the dose slowly and insuring an adequate water volume to precipitate it all is important ;otherwise it will travel on until some PO4 or carbonate adsorbs to it.
IME, you still need a sock or other filtration even after a long settling run. When I use it in very small amounts on occasion: I dose it to an overflow,;it winds down the drain into the bottom of a 32 gallon brute garbage can filled with salt water and live rock and drains out the top; It goes from there to a 36 inch run acroos a deep sand bed with live rock piled on top ; then on to the sump drain with a sock on it. There is still precipitant evident in the sock. The precipitant is relatively harmless when it settles since it won't redissolve at reef tank ph, it's pretty much sand. It's dangerous in the water column as it clogs gills and filter feeder respiratory apparatuses.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

personally

personally

I wouldn't rely on an open settling area. Use LaCl3 in conjunction with proper mechanical filtration and a protein skimmer. After dosage monitor alkalinity because it will get knocked down by the LaCl3 treatment.