PhosFree by Natural Chemistry evaluation.

[Moorepower]

This is my first one so I hope I cover everything.
I would not get any of the other phosfree pool plus or other mixtures because we are doing fish tanks and not a pool lol. So please subscribe and check back as I will be covering this for a week long test

I am doing this because nothing I was changing made a difference I used phos sponges and pholock and my tank never got under .5. I'm guessing .5 because my tester goes .32 to 6.4 and my color is in between.

PO4 .5
Mag 1350
Cal 420
Nitrate 6
Dkh 10.9
Alk 3.88
SG 1.025
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0

I wanted to start out slow so I mixed .5L in 3L of water. And with my sump I use blue filter pad as a medium. I soaked my filter pad in the solution and rang it out. I then took 1 cap (the top of the phosFree container or 106ml) and added it in drip form in front of my skimmer. I want to point out just add it to your sump the skimmer didn't take any thing out doing it this way. And nothing was trapped in my 2nd stage filter pad before it goes back to my DT (display tank or main tank). 10 min into the test my DT got a white haze in the water everything remained the same pollips, RBT scallops torch all remained out and opened only my blue hippo tank freaked out. And acted scared. I want to point out I had added 2 baby gold strip maroon clown fish ( yes I know bad timing for the test but I started and forgot I had put them in my tank). Everyone acted fine. Will post photos of my sump later

 

[Moorepower]

Photo1

 

[Moorepower]

Photo2. My sump is a 29 gallon DIY

Not sure why it's loading my photos sidewise

 

[Greg 45]

Please read thread on forum called lanthium chloride
I might be wrong as usual but the phos free is not as strong

 

[Moorepower]

I have read it I have read a lot of items people use and most say this phosfree is not as strong ya ya ya. But it's what the local pool store had and is cheaper so I wanted to give a detailed experience with this phos product.

As my title says this is MY evaluation of this phosfree item I could have used the commercial strength but I wanted to save money and most people have not posted detailed info on this item so I am

 

[Moorepower]

So 1 hour later ( I did this yesterday). The white haze is gone everyone ok but hippo tang still acting scared.

 

[Moorepower]

2 hours later ran tests again. PO4 down to about .05/6. My tester goes from .04-.08
Ph and alk has dropped some. Ph about 7.9. Will add some ph buffer to raise .2 just to keep it up while the phosfree is still doing it's job. I have noticed a slight film on the bottom of my sump. Kinda a light green almost like a light Algae film. All fish the same hippo is hiding in his home

 

[Moorepower]

24 hours later ph still a little low about 8.1. PO4 still .5/6 Will do almost 20% water change since the tang is still a little scared (still comes out to eat like a pig but then does back to his home) and dose the ph a little. I use RODI water I make and the ph is 6.6 before I add the salt.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, this is a HORRIBLE PRODUCT with which to treat a reef aquarium. IT IS NOT EQUIVALENT to lanthanum chloride.

From the MSDS, it can have more zinc than lanthanum, and zinc is rather toxic. It also has a lot of soluble aluminum, which is known from my own experiments to irritate corals, even at low levels.

here's the MSDS:

http://naturalchemistry.com/get_fil... - English MSDS - Dec13.pdf&name=PHOSFREE- EN

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Here is some data supporting the toxicity of zinc.

http://www.ukmarinesac.org.uk/activities/water-quality/wq8_6.htm

from it, a concentration of 40 micrograms/L can kill certain marine inverts.

If the product here is 3% zinc, then adding 10 mL adds 300 mg or 300,000 micrograms of zinc.

300,000 micrograms of zinc in a 100 gallon tank with maybe 300 liters of fluid pushes the concentration to 1,000 micrograms per L. That's far over the level required to kill inverts (40 micrograms/L).

 

[Moorepower]

From that 300L I only used 100ml so it's not as high as you posted. Sorry typo I used .25L in 3L of water

 

[Moorepower]

And I will even say 24 hours later all fish corals and inverts are alive. I even have very small critters still living. Not sure what they are they swim way to fast. Best description would be tiny brine shrimp and saltwater roaches lol

 

[shermanator]

From that 300L I only used 100ml so it's not as high as you posted. Sorry typo I used .25L in 3L of water

If Randy is correct and it's 3% w/v zinc then your 105 gal of water (roughly 400 liters) is now ~625 µg/L zinc (from your revised amounts, you added 8 mL of the product).

For what it's worth (and for other people interested in using lanthanum to reduce phosphates), SeaKlear Phosphate remover (also meant for pools) is supposedly only LaCl3 without other heavy metals.

 

[Moorepower]

But I never put any live shrimp in there so no clue what they are

 

[shermanator]

But I never put any live shrimp in there so no clue what they are

Might be mysid shrimp that came in with a macro like chaeto?

 

[Moorepower]

I just added macro algae last week. I have had the little swimmers and water roaches for months lol.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Recommending this product, regardless of your personal experience with the very few animals you keep is just not reasonable since it is simple to look up the toxicity and see that it is not a suitable product for a reef. That's my concern. Folks will read this thread and think it is a possible choice for themselves, especially in this forum for inexperienced reefers who may be looking for such alternatives and think this is a mainstream possibility.

If you want to use it, that's fine, but other folks should know that it is unsuitable and it should be avoided, despite that fact that it might be cheap.

 

[EnderTurtle]

I only use it to cure my rocks. Works great. Afterwards I wash the live rock off in RO water.

Also OP maybe your rocks haven't fully cured and are still leaching phosphates?

 

[Moorepower]

And yet there are countless other threads that have postings saying phosfree is safe? And other posts saying they dose it for many months with no problems.

 

[Moorepower]

And my tank. Hippo tang, maroon clowns, star fish, valentine puffer, watch goby, pistol shrimp, decorator crab, pompom crab, few other crabs and snails, 3 different nudibranchs, RBT anemone, tub anemone, torch coral, frogspawn, hammer head, brain, 5 different types of mushrooms, pollips, sponges, and other little creatures living in my tank. And don't post stuff saying hey that's not reef safe. The puffer has never bothered any of my corals .