Lowering P04 in an SPS tank. How would you do it?

[slavetonet]

Lanthanum chloride is cheap and effective to combat PO4 issues.
All I do is use 10ml of that liquid into a 1 liter of RODI water.
Hook it up to a dosing pump and dose 5ml per hours x 24 hours. It goes straight into the top of the skimmer neck.
In my tank I had 0.34ppm of PO4 after a tank relocation. Within 2 weeks I am back down to 0.00ppm according to the Hanna checker.
All I used was 20ml worth of Lanthanum chloride to do the job in a 400 liters system.
Took it offline once I got there as my media would of reset and able to take on the nutrients management.

 

[Rakie]

What everyone says about Lanthanum Chloride is true -- I would only add that it is EXTREMELY POTENT, and you can, and will, absolutely destroy your reef if you don't employ the utmost caution when adding it to your system.

If you want to use it, it's great stuff. But you need to invest time into learning about it, and not just dump some in. I would also caution you to use it in very small doses at first. Probably 1/4 of the recommended dosage.

A lot of people would say i'm being way overly cautious, and they're probably right... But I would sooo much rather be safe than sorry, and I wish that for anyone out there who keeps a reef!

 

[Wiskey]

Oops!!!!

So my original measurement was 0.21 PPM PO4
I also forgot I did have a NO3 kit (An API, I have a Salifert on the way) it was 0.

So I did 3, 15-20 G water changes.
And I dosed 2.5 PPM worth of N03 (To balance things out somewhat)
And I dosed 0.5 ML Vodka (A kinda low starting dose)

My hope was that all this would bring me down to 0.1

BUT!
It brought me down to 0.03. I really didn't mean to bring it down that fast.

My guess is that it will rubber band back up pretty quick as my sand and rock spits out phosphate.

I do have the Lanthanum Chloride on the way. I have done some research on it. Melv's reef said that he has been using it only for going on 10 years with great results, and I've found many references to public aquariums using it.

My plan for it is to start with one drop every week and measure P04 levels then adjust to get P04 between 0.04 and 0.02.

I do plan to keep NO3 around 1, with any luck the PO4 will maintain itself with NO3 being up but if not I will use the LC.

I'm still on the fence about my skimmer. I very much doubt it processes anymore than 100 GPH, and more likely it's about 50.

The Pegleg skimmer pulls 3x the air, and processes at least 3x the water. My overflow is 500gph so I could process up to that and have it be useful.

What do you think?

Whiskey

 

[Dapg8gt]

PhosphateRx is lanthanium chloride. Read up on it bigtime before you use it. You can also get it from other sources in more volume and cheaper. You can really take out too much with it. I would never use it in a reef.

Yes, removing nutrients will reduce NO3 and PO4 - not the ones that are in there now, but it will reduce the incoming.

Even if you change a lot of water, the PO4 bound by the aragonite will release some to get into equilibrium with the water and they will rise again. It will only go down a little bit in the end - it takes a lot of WCs to get phosphates down for good.

I would personally replace some sand, suck out as much bubble algae as possible and get a few emerald crabs and then maybe a few more water changes. ...nothing drastic. If you want to get drastic, maybe a few TBSP of GFO.

This is in the "lets don't invent problems to solve" spot for me where everything looks good except for a bit of bubble algae which is going to exist in a lot of tanks anyway. Not to be too doooochie, but I would really study any of the recommendations and especially the posters who gave some of them - see if they have a tank that is anywhere near yours and are on your level. Just because people can post does not mean that they should - screen everybody's opinions and especially mine because not all internet posts are created equal.

That last paragraph is the truth.. I read so many things in this specific forum that is just plain babble..

I have use lacl in the past but it takes dedication if your not going to fabricate a specific reactor. And even if you do it can still go bad for the fish and corals in your system.. It definitely works but the science isn't quite out there on real long term effects. But that's coming from a guy that uses rust and garden bug killer lol..
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[Wiskey]

Oh. P.S.

Because I dropped Po4 that far, I turned down the lights for a few days just to avoid problems.

Whiskey

 

[Rakie]

Very cool Whiskey!!

I might add that an no3 at 1 could be a bit on the low side. In my personal experience, and that of those around me whom have outstanding tanks and years of experience -- ULNS is a dying system. The beautiful ULNS system typically are survived by many little bottles of of Micro/Macro nutrients, multiple this, that, and the others. And when things *do* go wrong, and a crash is occurring, people often seem to have a much harder time turning that incoming crash around.

I really feel a good safe area for SPS reef tanks is 5/.03, yet I've also seen some amazing tanks with 10-30(Yep, thirty) nitrates. Personally, my tank looked best at 25 nitrates, .08 phosphates before I upgraded. Just remember, only bad things happen quickly. I'm often tempted to add this, or that, or double my dose of X, Y, or Z... But keeping that phrase at heart has kept me from making as many mistakes as I may have.

So keep up the awesome work and update the thread as necessary. It'll someday prove to be a reliable resource for someone out there

 

[jda]

Keep on testing the PO4. It should go back up as the aragonite unbinds some phosphate to bring the system back to equilibrium. Test daily and observe the rise and then where it levels off- this will tell you something about your tank and what to expect next time that you change water.

Hannah makes a ultra-low nitrate reader too. If you are going to be dosing any kind of nitrate, you should probably pick one up since Salifert will just look clear (near zero) and not give you any kind of usable number.

The vodka will not have done anything yet. It takes constant dosing and over a few weeks, you will grow bacteria in the water column (and elsewhere) that will use up the nitrate and phosphate and the skimmer will take a lot of them out. It is important that you are consistent and patient and don't dose too much - the bacteria will outcompete the diatoms in the coral and they will bleach and then starve if you strip the water of too many nutrients. I would not recommend dosing vodka in a tank with nutrient levels as low as yours - IMO you have way more to lose than to gain.

 

[Rakie]

It takes constant dosing and over a few weeks, you will grow bacteria in the water column (and elsewhere) that will use up the nitrate and phosphate and the skimmer will take a lot of them out. It is important that you are consistent and patient and don't dose too much - the bacteria will outcompete the diatoms in the coral and they will bleach and then starve if you strip the water of too many nutrients. I would not recommend dosing vodka in a tank with nutrient levels as low as yours - IMO you have way more to lose than to gain.

^^ Very wise advice!

..the bacteria will outcompete the diatoms in the coral..

He's right, but I think he means zooxanthellae, which is an obnoxious word to spell

 

[Breadman03]

Dribbles of lanthanum are quite potent. I can't remember the amounts I used in my ~250 gallon system, but I diluted maybe 5ml into a few gallons of water and used an Aqualifter to dose my tank. It really hammered my PO4, but my tank had crashed and I was in reboot mode.

I would probably make a dilute solution to dose. Your tank looks quite nice and you don't want to rock the boat.

 

[Wiskey]

I got my Salifert NO3 kit in and it was reading 0 again last night. I dosed 5 PPM of NO3 again to help balance it out.

I plan to test my PO4 tonight and let you know. I have dosed nothing else.

The corals look the same so far except for a little bit stronger PE though that was always good. I did kill the LED's so the lower nutrients didn't shock them.

I'm glad that there have been no sudden changes.

Whiskey

 

[Wiskey]

Good news! My p04 is still 0.03!

Whiskey