Lanthanum to lower phosphate in rocks outside of aquarium

[kenchilada]

My phosphate is sky high, beyond test kit range. I want to remove the rock in batches and use lanthanum to clear the rock of bound phosphates.

Tank is 220G and there is 150 pounds rock. No sand! Currently is fish only and converting back to reef after long family illness took me away.

What would be the most effective way to dose lanthanum chloride in this scenario? I would use Brightwell Phosphat-E. My idea was to put 75 pounds of rock into large stock tub, make a strong lanthanum chloride solution and drip it 24/7 into a sock. Or should I just drip it full strength?

I do not want to kill the rock because it is very nice mature rock and the tank is very healthy other than this phosphate issue.

I apologize if this has been covered elsewhere but I could not find anything.

 

[kenchilada]

Secondary goal is to avoid killing all the beneficial critters living in the rock. Does the precipitate even affect animals other than fish? This thread seems to indicate it should not affect them.

 

[kenchilada]

Decided to order a 3L jug of Phosphat-E, throw 20 pounds of rock in a tub, drip it full strength and see what happens.

I will try to work out what to dose to get to 0.1 phosphate and then scale it up

 

[radiata]

Secondary goal is to avoid killing all the beneficial critters living in the rock. Does the precipitate even affect animals other than fish? This thread seems to indicate it should not affect them.

Decided to order a 3L jug of Phosphat-E, throw 20 pounds of rock in a tub, drip it full strength and see what happens.

I will try to work out what to dose to get to 0.1 phosphate and then scale it up

I can't quote the source, but I recollect reading somewhere in our R2R Lanthanum Chloride posts that LC can take out Vermetid Snails. There are also several claims that it takes out amphipods. Of course the amphipods are really quite replaceable, but an en masse elimination of Vermetid Snails? That could be a prayer answered! Count me in!

As per treating rock in a stand alone tub for phosphate reduction using LC (assuming the water in the tub is circulating, a heater approximates our tank temperatures, and salinity is under control) once the phosphates in the treatment tub water are nil, couldn't the water in the treatment tub be used for a water change in your primary reef system once any particulate Lanthanum Phosphate was filtered out?

Extrapolating a few steps ahead, shouldn't the very first step in anyone's setting up a reef aquarium using live rock be a step to eliminate phosphates from that rock using your stand-alone phosphate leaching procedure? Not to mention including possible Vermetid snail eradication?

Thanks you for getting me thinking...

 

[Kzang]

Since you have no corals, I’d just dose in tank in 5 micron socks. Just keep testing and replacing the socks. It is known to have an issue with killing yellow tangs for some reason.

The problem a lot of people have is, it doesn’t instantly bind to phosphate. It has to find the phosphate. Also a lot of people just dose pure concentrated lanthanum instead of diluting into rodi and dripping it into the filter sock.

I did this from a custom mariculture aquascape I had made from epoxy. The crap leached phosphates like crazy. I had corals and sps, but I just did it every week, and not drop too much at a time.

It took me a good 3-4 months if I remember right to finally get all the phosphate out.

 

[kenchilada]

I am dripping into a 5 micron sock in my sump. A powerhead is pumping water into the sock.

The socks clog FAST. This is a very annoying slow process so far. I have 25 micron socks in the 5 micron to help. The socks last 4-6 hours. I feel I have to babysit it because I don’t want to risk killing all my tangs I’ve had 5+ years.

My solution is 50mL Phosphat-E in 2L water. I will try dosing about 10L of this and then re-test.

 

[kenchilada]

Extrapolating a few steps ahead, shouldn't the very first step in anyone's setting up a reef aquarium using live rock be a step to eliminate phosphates from that rock using your stand-alone phosphate leaching procedure? Not to mention including possible Vermetid snail eradication?

If it’s dry rock I would nuke it first. My rock is live gulf rock, never been dry, so I didn’t want to kill it. I only went fish-only for a while due to family illness.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I am dripping into a 5 micron sock in my sump. A powerhead is pumping water into the sock.

The socks clog FAST. This is a very annoying slow process so far. I have 25 micron socks in the 5 micron to help. The socks last 4-6 hours. I feel I have to babysit it because I don’t want to risk killing all my tangs I’ve had 5+ years.

My solution is 50mL Phosphat-E in 2L water. I will try dosing about 10L of this and then re-test.

So did you try it outside the tank in a tub?

 

[kenchilada]

So did you try it outside the tank in a tub?

I didn’t, because it’s a LOT of rock to remove and I don’t want to scratch the glass, but I still might do it if I have to.

 

[jda]

Sock clamped onto the side with a hose from powerhead and drip is a good way to do this.

If you want all of the inverts to live, then you cannot go too fast. Nobody really knows how fast is too much or anything, only that all complaints about coral and invert losses are from going too fast. I would try and not go any faster than the rock can release, so a slow and steady decline moreso than a drastic drop and then a rebound with rock unbinding. Every tank is going to be different, but you will get the hang of it once you test a few times in the beginning.

I treat rock that I get from people shutting down their tanks in bins. I use SeaKlear raw and put in quite a bit at at time - like 5-10ml. These rocks usually do not have a ton of good life on them so I go fast. It still takes a few months to get out most of the po4. I can go from flashing numbers on my Hannah to 0.10 in about a week with heavy LC dosing. You can get from 0.10 to 0.03, or so, pretty quickly too. Beyond that, it can take a week in between dosings for the po4 on the inner parts of the rocks to unbind. I recommend a good skimmer, some carbon, strong flow and a heater. Keep the rock dark - I have had coralline start to grow once the po4 got lower and I don't want to supplement calcium and carbonate in these bins.

 

[kenchilada]

Sock clamped onto the side with a hose from powerhead and drip is a good way to do this.

If you want all of the inverts to live, then you cannot go too fast. Nobody really knows how fast is too much or anything, only that all complaints about coral and invert losses are from going too fast. I would try and not go any faster than the rock can release, so a slow and steady decline moreso than a drastic drop and then a rebound with rock unbinding. Every tank is going to be different, but you will get the hang of it once you test a few times in the beginning.

I treat rock that I get from people shutting down their tanks in bins. I use SeaKlear raw and put in quite a bit at at time - like 5-10ml. These rocks usually do not have a ton of good life on them so I go fast. It still takes a few months to get out most of the po4. I can go from flashing numbers on my Hannah to 0.10 in about a week with heavy LC dosing. You can get from 0.10 to 0.03, or so, pretty quickly too. Beyond that, it can take a week in between dosings for the po4 on the inner parts of the rocks to unbind. I recommend a good skimmer, some carbon, strong flow and a heater. Keep the rock dark - I have had coralline start to grow once the po4 got lower and I don't want to supplement calcium and carbonate in these bins.

Thanks, I always appreciate your input.

So far I have dosed 90mL with this method over four days. My 5 micron sock clogs after 6-8 hours.

My sailfin tang is the only fish affected (4 other non-zebrasoma tangs are fine). By the end of an 8 hour drip she is breathing very fast. By morning she is back to normal. My theory is there is still lanthanum precipitate forming in open tank water, because some percentage of un-reacted LaCL passes through the sock. It is not enough to show clouding in the tank water but it must be there.

I will wait another few days before re-testing. I am using Red Sea Phosphate kit (non-pro). Diluted to 1:16, I was beyond its max readable resolution of 16ppm PO4. I diluted the sample 1:32 and estimate PO4 is around 14ppm. I do not know if the test functions correctly at this dilution, but I figure it would at least give me a reference point to detect a trend downwards even if the result value is not accurate.

This is 1:32 dilution test from 3/15:

 

[jda]

If you see a fish laboring, I would dose less but more often. It is too big of a risk for me to take.

I don't think that any sized micro filter can get the raw LC.

 

[kenchilada]

Thankfully this is just coral snow. Gave the tank a break from LC dosing yesterday and will resume tonight.

 

[kenchilada]

I was curious what the water would look like if I rinsed out the 5 micron sock I’m dripping into. I run a 25 micron sock inside the 5, I only rinsed the 5.

Definitely cloudier than I thought. I’m going to run the same stock setup without the LC drip and compare.

The big things floating is trash off my garden hose.

 

[kenchilada]

So my sailfin tang is sensitive to these LC drips. I lowered the dose by half and he still breathes laboriously after 6-8 hours.

As another crappy experiment, I’m going to drip the same dose into a 1 micron sock instead of 5 micron.

I’m really not convinced the socks accomplish much of anything here, and its a lot of work to set them up and wash them.

 

[Garf]

As another crappy experiment

I like those.

I react sand in lanthanum as my chosen phosphate reduction method;

Thread 'Desorbing phosphate from sand with lanthanum.' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/desorbing-phosphate-from-sand-with-lanthanum.981286/

However, you would need a lot of sand lol.

The bucket test;

 

[kenchilada]

I like those.

I react sand in lanthanum as my chosen phosphate reduction method;

Thread 'Desorbing phosphate from sand with lanthanum.' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/desorbing-phosphate-from-sand-with-lanthanum.981286/

However, you would need a lot of sand lol.

The bucket test;

Very interesting. I’ll have to read the whole thing tonight. I’m curios what the adsorption capacity of the sand actually is. What if I built a sand filter out of a 40G trash can and filled with cheap aragonite play sand? I have holes to fill in my yard with the sand after.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So my sailfin tang is sensitive to these LC drips. I lowered the dose by half and he still breathes laboriously after 6-8 hours.

As another crappy experiment, I’m going to drip the same dose into a 1 micron sock instead of 5 micron.

I’m really not convinced the socks accomplish much of anything here, and its a lot of work to set them up and wash them.

IMO, it is not known if the effects of lanthanum on fish that are reported are from soluble lanthanum (which a sock cannot ever prevent) or from particulates (which socks can only prevent that are larger than the sock pore size).

 

[kenchilada]

IMO, it is not known if the effects of lanthanum on fish that are reported are from soluble lanthanum (which a sock cannot ever prevent) or from particulates (which socks can only prevent that are larger than the sock pore size).

I believe it. I've read it is from the precipitate "clogging gills" but if this were a fish in quarantine I would swear it is ammonia burn. I'm monitoring closely and will move him to a methylene blue bath if he looks really bad.

Yesterday I tried dosing a smaller dose (20mL over 12 hours) and the fish was no less stressed by it. I am not sure I can get enough lanthanum into this tank to bring down PO4 in a reasonable timeframe (ie a few months).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I believe it. I've read it is from the precipitate "clogging gills" but if this were a fish in quarantine I would swear it is ammonia burn. I'm monitoring closely and will move him to a methylene blue bath if he looks really bad.

Yesterday I tried dosing a smaller dose (20mL over 12 hours) and the fish was no less stressed by it. I am not sure I can get enough lanthanum into this tank to bring down PO4 in a reasonable timeframe (ie a few months).

If you still want to lower it, then GFO might be the best bet.