Lanthanum - phosphate wrecker!

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
This stuff is powerful!

Following in the footsteps of Dave (DyM - check out his insane build thread)...I dosed Lanthanum to drop phosphates.

In 24 hours, dropped mine from 1.5 to .1 mg/L. Granted, this drop could be catastrophically too fast for a reef tank (I just have FOWLR), but I wanted mine down pronto to kick my cyano issue without more antibacterials (ChemiClean etc).

FWIW, here's how I'm doing it...
Seaklear Phosphate remover for pools, dumped straight into skimmer (dropped return waterline, then dumped measured dose through top of skimmer cup overflow), added 5 micron sock to skimmer return. I dumped 2.5-5 mL at a time, every few hours, total about 12-14mL. Within this timeframe, the sock was completely filled and overflowing.

1 Qt of Seaklear's product is about $35. That gives me about 65 more like-kind doses. Insanely cheap compared to GFO! Throwing my Rowaphos bag out today...
 

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
deboy69;220311 said:
Where did you get it at?

Sent from Earth
Ordered both from Amazon. Delivered to/from Earth so your shipping cost shouldn't be that bad.

I should do a cost per .1 mg/L drop comparison for Lanthanum to GFO, all counted (filter sock etc). Probably comes down to about $.50 per for Lanthanum.
 

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
Basically so I can keep the ATS going as a nitrate export engine...wanted to get the phosphates low but not zero. That way, I leave some for the ATS to use (in combination with nitrates) for growth/export. If I go to zero, then ATS growth will be limited, which means my nitrate export won't work with the ATS. That's my strategy, but we'll see if it works.

I would use a dosing pump if I cared about pacing the reduction, but I don't. I've read that many find corals will die with a reduction that is too fast (in other words, they get used to growth-limiting higher levels of phosphates). But it seems that Fish don't notice. Figured I'd just pour it in and not buy another thing I may not need.
 

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
Wow, thanks for the plug, it's great to give back after receiving so much help and advice.

For Po4, I've read FOWLR tanks really have a lot higher concentrations of Po4 in the rock work, so I wouldn't doubt if you'd need 2treatments a week - over a period of a month or two to get them under control.

For my reef, I dose only 2ml of LC to about a gallon of water about once a month (100gal total vol). Truth be told, and follow this at your own perril, I've been putting 2ml in my RO/DI top off of about 10gal, once every 2-3 weeks. Changing out the socks gets old. That is why I don't think it's a great solution on a day to day long term basis. My experiment of 3months, and I'll call it that with the RO water, is working out great. I still use GFO and have consistently kept Po4 down to .07 and under.
 

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
You bet Dave! All of my knowledge is stolen from someone else :) With my added idiot coating when I try to explain what I know. In this case I learned from your build (and learned a lot more than just Lanth from it)...

Anyway, I did try the ATO reservoir approach at first. One thing I will say is that the Lanth will precipitate phosphate if ANY PO4 is present (duh). While my source water sourced measured 0 phosphates on a Seachem higher precision test, my ATO reservoir had precipitate, which means immeasurable = trace amount. Not a complete surprise since I only use RO water (not RO/DI). That said, this is the reason why I decided to go straight to the skimmer and not run it off my ATO reservoir and through the sock. Everyone finds a little different approach works best for their system.

Great insight on running it on occasion. I will see how much my phosphates rise after a few days. As I understand phosphate levels in a tank, rocks will continue to leach out phosphate until it is in equilibrium with the water it is in. Since it could take many treatments to fully leach out until it equalizes at .05ish, I'll start doing regular treatments. For the ATO purposes, I do want to keep some phosphates in there.

Hijacking my own thread, but once I get through all this I'm emptying my sump except for a carbon sock, my skimmer, and the ATS. Heck, I may even pull the carbon sock. Simple is way better.
 

Ghosty

Butterfly Fish
#8
What other brands (besides SeaKlear) also contain Lanthanum Chloride?
 

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
None that I found that compares. There is a Seaklear aquarium product...same Lanthanum Chloride, but in a more diluted solution and a higher cost-per price. And heck, a human safe product (for pools) is probably far higher safety/quality than a fish safe (for pools) of the same compound. So I went with the pool product, as do many reefers.

There are pool phosphate products that have unknown or unsafe impact, such as lanthanum carbonate, but they shouldn't be used.

It is speculated that Lanthanum Chloride is the active ingredient in Blue Life Phosphate Rx, since it produces the same phosphate precipitation outcome. Over 20x more expensive than Seaklear.
 

Ghosty

Butterfly Fish
#10
Cool, thx. After reading more threads, looks like there is speculation that LC is also the ingredient in Brightwell's Phos-E.
 
#11
Check out "clear pond" brand phosphate remover on Amazon. A 32 oz bottle is $15 and is LC also. A local guy told me about it and I have not looked back since. I do a 1/2 capful in a drip whenever my PO4 starts to creep up. He reccomended to drip it into a 5 micron bag or into the skimmer with the bag on the output. I'm too lazy and just drip it in.
 

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#12
dazoc;220821 said:
Check out "clear pond" brand phosphate remover on Amazon. A 32 oz bottle is $15 and is LC also. A local guy told me about it and I have not looked back since. I do a 1/2 capful in a drip whenever my PO4 starts to creep up. He reccomended to drip it into a 5 micron bag or into the skimmer with the bag on the output. I'm too lazy and just drip it in.
Wow, way cheaper. Thanks for that tip! Are you sure this is LC? I did find a few Lanthanum compounds (like Lanthanum Carbonate), based on my own research the Lanthanum Chloride is supposedly safest. If Clear Pond is this, then next time I need Lanthanum, I'll switch to this...
 

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#13
OK, here's my last update for the thread...got my initial reduction into maintenance range...

I dosed 2x, into skimmer, over 24 hours, ~11mL each time, about 4 days in between each dose. This dropped PO4 from 1.5 to .05 mg/L.

Time will tell how much I have to dose to maintain this level, but the drop itself is pretty staggering. Again I would caution anyone against attempting this with corals, as there are reports out there of coral death when a drop is too quick.
 
#15
As far as the clear pond is concerned. I am pretty sure it is, I put a call into them to make 100% for sure. Will update when/if they call me back, and if they tell me.
 

Zooid

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#16
They should have an MSDS sheet for it. That should tell you what's in it.

or not lol....I just looked up the MSDS on the SeaKlear and it's ingredients are proprietary...doh!
 

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
Zooid;221937 said:
They should have an MSDS sheet for it. That should tell you what's in it.

or not lol....I just looked up the MSDS on the SeaKlear and it's ingredients are proprietary...doh!
Yup, perhaps they don't have to disclose stuff that humans aren't supposed to eat...I noticed same for all the aquarium based products that everyone things is LC...MSDS with "proprietary"...doh!
 

DyM

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#20
I still do monthly. Not sure if the clear pond was a verified alternative. I paid $35 for a bottle maybe 3 yrs ago, and it's at about half full so I wouldn't be focused on price since $35 in GFO gets used up in about 6 months....
 
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