Brightwell phosphate-E

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I agree, we can never know for sure, unless we have a controlled environment. But with filter sock I think there’s a lot of details people leave out, like did they change the sock out that day/ a few hours later or they leave it and the sock overflow and those particles return to into the tank, and do they have a skimmer to help with the removal as well. Personally I feel like if you dose it into the sock, you should remove the socks within a few hours to prevent all the particles that are trapped from escaping and returned into the tank. As for skimmer I could see that as soon as I dose it in there, the skimmer is trying to remove it asap into the collection cup, the skimmer is removing the particles and/or the chemical I don’t know. I think we need to test the skim mate to see what is really being skimmed out, so I think as a hobbyist we just need to take all the precautions we can when dosing this stuff, since there are more than a few cases of dosing lanthanum causes fish deaths.

I would just say that the removal of particulates by skimmers is not inherently better than removal by socks (even assuming particulate removal is the important attribute rather than faster conversion of soluble lanthanum to particulate lanthanum before organisms see it). The preferred particulate removal scheme may be very dependent on the skimmer and the socks used.

 

[Phamousreef]

I would just say that the removal of particulates by skimmers is not inherently better than removal by socks (even assuming particulate removal is the important attribute rather than faster conversion of soluble lanthanum to particulate lanthanum before organisms see it). The preferred particulate removal scheme may be very dependent on the skimmer and the socks used.

Yeah I agree, I don’t think one is better than the other unless someone is willing to put it to the test, since we don’t know which one is better for sure. I think it’s best for us to take a few steps to make sure whenever we’re dosing lanthanum products, to either dose it in a socks and removing the sock before it overflow or dosing it into the skimmer body, to reduce the risk of hurting the livestocks in our tank.

 

[bubbgee]

I've dosed a capful whenever my PO4 hits above .2 into my roller mat without any problems. It halves my PO4 overnight. No issues with my fishes either.

 

[GARRIGA]

I've dosed a capful whenever my PO4 hits above .2 into my roller mat without any problems. It halves my PO4 overnight. No issues with my fishes either.

Perhaps roller mat extracts the particulate formed from binding LC with po4 although aren't these roller mats larger pore than the recommended 5 micron?

 

[bubbgee]

Perhaps roller mat extracts the particulate formed from binding LC with po4 although aren't these roller mats larger pore than the recommended 5 micron?

Reefmat is 200 micron, so yes larger pores. No observable issues though.

 

[code4]

I know this thread is a bit old but here is something I have noticed and experienced. I was dosing phosphate E on and off, every time I’m changing equipments, adding fish or changing my feeding schedule, which is something might cause phosphate to go up. Everything was fine until a few weeks ago after I dosed phosphate e into the sump like I always do, thinking nothing of it, I turned off my skimmer to clean the cup. After 5-10 minutes I came back notice my blonde naso was acting up, I thought nothing of it and go on about my day. The next day I noticed my phosphate sky rocketed, so I went to feed my tank some frozen mysis and look around tank to see if anything have died in the tank, thats when I notice the blonde naso is not eating, it went on for 5-6 days, thought he was a goner. During that week I did some research and look around. I then found a thread here on R2R a few people experienced the same thing with phosphate e, some people fish made it through some didn’t. After day 5 or 6 the fish start to eat again but barely, like he didn’t know how to eat or what to eat, took him another week to recover and being normal again ( now eating like a pig). Since I still have phosphate problem, and want to test out the theory that because I turn off the skimmer when I dosed the Phosphate E, that what caused the fish to stop eating. I decided to dose phosphate E again but this time I dose it straight into the skimmer body chamber from the top (assuming because the skimmer was turn off that what caused the problem the last time ) , I have been dosing 10ml every day for the pass week and and all the fish and tang are doing fine. So if anyone want to use phosphate E or other lanthanum chloride to control their phosphate instead of gfo or macro algae, I would recommend to dose it into the skimmer body just to be safe. I’m going to set up a doser and probably drill a hole in the middle of my skimmer lid and dose it through there, I’ll try to give an update in a few weeks if there’s any changes or any major problems.

How long after dosing into your skimmer do you wait before cleaning it? Do you clean the entire skimmer body or just the cup?

Thank you