Brightwell Phosphate-E Idea

[reefingaz]

I have never dosed lanthanum chloride before and my phosphate levels are really high. GFO does not seem to be working so I have ordered some Phosphate-E (lanthanum chloride). I have read hundreds of reviews with how well it works in lowering P04 very fast. I know the directions are to go small and slow and drip it in and NOT follow the directions on the bottle. I have several tangs in my tank and I have read a couple people lost their fish after dosing.
So the idea I have is to shut my return pump off for a day and dose enough to only lower the P04 in the sump and that way there is no risk to my fish the first 24hrs. Anyone tried this before to eliminate the risk of harming livestock and run this stuff in sump only (40 gal of water) then 24 hrs later turn return pump on and run that lower phosphate water to display tank. Thoughts?? Would this be safer or should I leave it and hope for the best?

 

[NowGlazeIT]

I have never dosed lanthanum chloride before and my phosphate levels are really high. GFO does not seem to be working so I have ordered some Phosphate-E (lanthanum chloride). I have read hundreds of reviews with how well it works in lowering P04 very fast. I know the directions are to go small and slow and drip it in and NOT follow the directions on the bottle. I have several tangs in my tank and I have read a couple people lost their fish after dosing.
So the idea I have is to shut my return pump off for a day and dose enough to only lower the P04 in the sump and that way there is no risk to my fish the first 24hrs. Anyone tried this before to eliminate the risk of harming livestock and run this stuff in sump only (40 gal of water) then 24 hrs later turn return pump on and run that lower phosphate water to display tank. Thoughts?? Would this be safer or should I leave it and hope for the best?

I worry your plan will lead to increased phosphates In your display tank and if you have coral this could be a bad play. I like the slow and steady approach. Using a syringe and dosing small amount by had periodically

 

[reefingaz]

I worry your plan will lead to increased phosphates In your display tank and if you have coral this could be a bad play. I like the slow and steady approach. Using a syringe and dosing small amount by had periodically

Your right it just hit me that my skimmer and fuge would not be cleaning my tank water those 24hrs. I have a TON of coral and a lot of high $$ pieces so I don’t want to jeopardize that.

 

[reefingaz]

I worry your plan will lead to increased phosphates In your display tank and if you have coral this could be a bad play. I like the slow and steady approach. Using a syringe and dosing small amount by had periodically

Have you used this product before? Seems of i dose slowly like you suggest there should be no problems. Most problems seem to be when people dosed it all at one time

 

[DrZoidburg]

Yea lanthanum is toxic. It could be that they dosed too much, and didn't do enough water change to make it non toxic levels.

 

[NowGlazeIT]

Have you used this product before? Seems of i dose slowly like you suggest there should be no problems. Most problems seem to be when people dosed it all at one time

No sorry dude I haven’t. I’m curious to try it tho because my last Gfo encounter stripped my tank of Po4 and now I have to dose it back into the tank. Had no idea till I saw nitrates climbing and coral decay

 

[reefingaz]

No sorry dude I haven’t. I’m curious to try it tho because my last Gfo encounter stripped my tank of Po4 and now I have to dose it back into the tank. Had no idea till I saw nitrates climbing and coral decay

I’m the other way, been doing NOPOX for a year and nitrate bottom out at zero so I’m having to dose it back. I just can’t get PO4 down. Well I will try dosing phosphate-E slowly over a few days and keep an eye on things

 

[DrZoidburg]

The Laphosphate is not soluble so its not really as toxic. If they over did the Lachloride then they could have a problem. Soluble salts penetrate skin, and cell membranes. Like touching lead has no effect but lead salts go through skin. Id be willing to bet Phosphate e is still lanthanum(even though its proprietary). Just go slow with it. You might have to get crazy weigh your food and use po4 test kits to dial in your dose.

 

[DMG Reef]

Phosphate-E is a great product and very effective. I started using it a month ago by dosing it into a 1 micron filter sock in my sump. I had no issues for the first 4 days by dosing it very slowly 1 ml. at a time. But on day 5, I tried dosing 1 capful (5ml.) every 30 min. to knock the phosphates down faster. My yellow tang started breathing heavy and hiding in a cave after I had dosed 20 ml. in total. She was in distress for about 6 hrs. but fully recovered. I probably would have lost her if I had dosed more. Also, my deresa clam started gaping. I moved the clam into a different tank and it recovered as well.

I've been using it daily with no other problems. Just go slow and keep an eye on your tangs. Overdosing or dosing too fast will definitely kill them. My experience has been positive as far as getting PO4 under control. I have a tank full of acropora and it's had no negative effect on them.

 

[reefingaz]

Phosphate-E is a great product and very effective. I started using it a month ago by dosing it into a 1 micron filter sock in my sump. I had no issues for the first 4 days by dosing it very slowly 1 ml. at a time. But on day 5, I tried dosing 1 capful (5ml.) every 30 min. to knock the phosphates down faster. My yellow tang started breathing heavy and hiding in a cave after I had dosed 20 ml. in total. She was in distress for about 6 hrs. but fully recovered. I probably would have lost her if I had dosed more. Also, my deresa clam started gaping. I moved the clam into a different tank and it recovered as well.

I've been using it daily with no other problems. Just go slow and keep an eye on your tangs. Overdosing or dosing too fast will definitely kill them. My experience has been positive as far as getting PO4 under control. I have a tank full of acropora and it's had no negative effect on them.

Thanks this is very helpful! How big is your tank? I have 160 gal of water.

 

[DMG Reef]

Thanks this is very helpful! How big is your tank? I have 160 gal of water.

My tank is 112 gallons. My PO4 was .21 when I started using the Phosphate-E. It's at .09 now.

 

[Spieg]

Never tried Phosphate E, but have used Phosphate RX and more recently SeaKlear mixed with RODI (way less expensive). Never had any issues with Tangs, but never have to dose very much as I keep levels at 0.1 or less (typically lower about 0.05 once every few weeks). I like to install 5 micron filter socks and add it to the overflow (socks catch most of the particles so the water in tank doesn't even get cloudy).

 

[laverda]

Lanthanum chloride should be dosed slowly into skimmer or filter socks. I dose into my overflow, which feeds directly to my filters socks and skimmer. If you deplete the phosphate, lanthanum chloride will parcipate calcium which is typically what kills fish when dosing lanthanum chloride.

 

[DMG Reef]

Lanthanum chloride should be dosed slowly into skimmer or filter socks. I dose into my overflow, which feeds directly to my filters socks and skimmer. If you deplete the phosphate, lanthanum chloride will parcipate calcium which is typically what kills fish when dosing lanthanum chloride.

There must be something else going on besides precipitating calcium. I did not deplete my phosphate at all (it was at .13) when my tang started having breathing problems. From the research I've done, no one seems to know exactly what's going on with the occasional fish deaths.

 

[DrZoidburg]

Lanthanum chloride should be dosed slowly into skimmer or filter socks. I dose into my overflow, which feeds directly to my filters socks and skimmer. If you deplete the phosphate, lanthanum chloride will parcipate calcium which is typically what kills fish when dosing lanthanum chloride.

Not true sorry. It would precipitate tiny amounts of calcium. The fact is the leftover lanthanum chloride is what is toxic. think about one little ball in a gymnasium being your phosphate. Also a another little ball being lanthanum. It will take a long time for them to hit each other. If you dose too fast or too much you will have toxic levels in your tank.

 

[laverda]

I am just repeating what a chemist at one of the sellers of lanthanum chloride specificly told me when I worked at a large online vendor. If you dose to much at once the po4 locally could easily drop to zero and cause calcium to parcipitate. Yet the tank over all could still have po4.

 

[laverda]

Not true sorry. It would precipitate tiny amounts of calcium. The fact is the leftover lanthanum chloride is what is toxic. think about one little ball in a gymnasium being your phosphate. Also a another little ball being lanthanum. It will take a long time for them to hit each other. If you dose too fast or too much you will have toxic levels in your tank.

If that was the case you would not see the instant parcipation. Nore would it lower po4 at any dectable leval. There are thousants of balls as you refer to them in a much smaller area.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

It is recommended that you both dose slow and capture the reacted LaPO4 and remove it from the tank. While the LaPO4 remains in the water column, it can skew your Phosphate tests and show that you have higher amounts of phosphate than you do. Technically, the phosphate is still present in the tank, but it is unavailable for corals to utilize, which can lead to accidentally stripping the tank of usable phosphate (from your corals perspective).

My approach to using LaCl was to build a reactor/filter that helps with dosing it slowly and capturing the LaPO4 for removal. You can see my solution here: LaCl Dosing Reactor (No Socks!)

Dennis

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So the idea I have is to shut my return pump off for a day and dose enough to only lower the P04 in the sump and that way there is no risk to my fish the first 24hrs. Anyone tried this before to eliminate the risk of harming livestock and run this stuff in sump only (40 gal of water) then 24 hrs later turn return pump on and run that lower phosphate water to display tank. Thoughts?? Would this be safer or should I leave it and hope for the best?

I think that plan is an OK one, but it may take a lot of tries because much (perhaps the great majority) of the phosphate in the main tank may be temporarily bound to rock and sand and needs to be pulled off. The pump need only be off for a few h at most, not a whole day. Maybe only a few minutes.

Most folks do not see a lanthanum tox problem, so it's hard to know if it is worth it, IMO.

Collecting the solids is always worthwhile, IMO, and may help prevent tox issues.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I made a video showing the flocs of lanthanum phosphate. This was shot through the side of my reaction chamber. The flocs are slightly buoyant and are particularly stirred up in the video as I had just restarted the reactor after a maintenance fix. They do settle out over time.



These are what you want to remove from your water column. When these collect in large numbers, they appear as light tan residue.

Dennis