Can LaCl bind organic phosphates?

[Dennis Cartier]

I was in the TM forum discussing an idea to keep my LaCl reactor online while transitioning to TM NP-Bacto-Balance, and the question came up as to whether or not LaCl can bind both in-organic and organic phosphates, or just in-organic? I was under the assumption that it only bound in-organic phosphates.

The use case is that NP-Bacto-Balance is said to contain organic phosphates in order to make them available for the included carbon dosing to convert them into biomass for the corals, while avoiding the phosphates from being deposited onto the substrate surfaces. My thinking is that by having my LaCl still operating, and removing in-organic phosphates, I could do an early switch to NP-Bacto-Balance, and continue to pull down my phosphates, while delivering some nitrates. My nitrates are already fairly low, 0.4 ppm, while my phosphates are at 0.19 ppm.

Everything I have found online about removing phosphates from water, sounds like the chemical binders, only work with in-organic phosphates. Though they did not mention LaCl specifically, just Fe, Ca, and aluminum oxide.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I expect that anywhere that lanthanum is exposed at a mineral surface (calcium carbonate, lanthanum phosphate, lanthanum carbonate, etc.) there is the potential to bind many types of organic phosphates.

 

[Miami Reef]

@jda

 

[jda]

Do you mean organic phosphate molecules or phosphorous inside of organic things like zooplankton and microfauna? These things get confused on the interwebs.