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Soak it in circulating RODI freshwater until phosphates are 0. I have 30 lbs of Pukani rock that I started soaking on 12-Mar followed by a 100% water change on 30-Mar. It will go another week before I take another reading & another 100% water change. I expect 1 or 2 more full water changes then it will be ready. The number of water changes is dependent on the dried organic compounds inside the rock so it might take many 100% water changes to clean it out. On the plus side, freshwater is cheap.
Some people dose lanthanum chloride and some even use gfo to remove phosphates as it enters the soaking water (prior to putting tank)
I think you keep dosing lanthanum chloride till the phosphates is zero, do a water change and keep doing it till you leech out all phosphate.
Would you recommend using a heater also or is cold water fine?
Cold water is fine. Just make sure it's circulating. I'm using a single Hydor Koralia that was left over from my old system for 20 gallons of water.
If you’re doing routine water changes on your main tank, I’d also dump the old saltwater into the new rock container. Over time this will help build up bacteria on the new rocks prior to adding them to the tank.
Lanthanum chloride is usually obtained at the pool store. SeaClear if I recall correctly. I have used it before, actually battling a phosphate leaching problem in my display tank due the use of old dry rock (that was soaked and resoaked for a very long time). It works very well but you should read up on it prior to use. Not so dangerous when you're cooking rock, but it can be if you're dosing into the display.
I think the pool store lanthanum chloride, could be super concentrated. I do not think it matters as you are going to cycle the rocks separately. Also, you would need to run some kind of a filter to catch the particulate from the LaCl reaction.
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here is the calculator,
Unfortunately most shops are closed off cause of the coronavirus and I'm not sure where to get lanthanum chloride.
Tried looking on amazon but shipping seems like it'll be taking more than a month to come
Amazon is swamped right now and taking forever to ship. Ive gone back to using eBay, usually takes a week or less to receive items
With ebay instead of buying from one campany that's overloaded with orders you are choosing from thousands of (mostly) small businesses that can ship you items right away. It is safe as long as you look at the sellers rating before buying. There are tons of great sellers who have shipped 1000s of items and have 99.99% positive feedback.
Just watch out for the cheap stuff from China, that usually takes a month or two to arrive.