Advanced methods of maintaining nitrates and phosphates.

[Dan_P]

I just watched this... So I hope to never have to use Lanthenum Chloride. It just does not seem like something worth risking fish and/or coral over. I use natural methods like chaeto in a sump and rarely even have to use GFO. This seems a bit over the top for me. Any thoughts?

The first thing I would do is dilute the lanthanum chloride with RO/DI water. This would allow you to titrate very carefully how much phosphate is removed per hour. I would do offline experiments to observe phosphate removal rates and probably find an optimum concentration lanthunum chloride. This seems straightforward.

Dripping it into the skimmer is an interesting idea. In could work but I would need to do offline experiments to check on what factors influence removal efficiency before I attempted it. Dripping it into a filter sock seems safer.

 

[bigcheese]

I've been looking into some possibilities myself, and am trying an alternate path with a BADES reactor. Once it's conditioned, you control the amount of NO3 converted to N2 by altering the flow rate or amount of sulfur pellets in the reactor. Maybe not as quick to react as a purely chemical method, but seems to be pretty low maintenance and doesn't require dosing.
@Belgian Anthias has had a few posts on the subject, but since they updated the source site, a lot of the links he posted in R2R don't work. It's easier to Google BADES and go there directly.

 

[coralcruze]

Interesting... what size is your reef?

 

[aquadog]

Following

 

[bigcheese]

Interesting... what size is your reef?

80G. Nothing too big.

 

[DSEKULA]

Dosing pumps with carbon and lanthanum chloride could be pretty automated.
My tank has a ats for nutrient removal but I usually have an excess of po4, I dose lc into a sock and have a skimmer to pull out the bound up phosphate. Skimmer also helps backup the scrubber so there's no fluctuations when I do a cleaning. I personally don't do the carbon dosing and went with algae to remove most of the nutrients bc I had issues keeping pod life in the tank with carbon dosing and love dragonets. When I ran may tank with carbon and lc dosing it was very automated and efficient.

 

[Ardeus]

When dosing lanthanum chloride, remember that when phosphates are already low, it will bind to carbonates instead and lower alkalinity. I use it to get as low as 0.1 ppm.

 

[vahegan]

Dripping it into the skimmer is an interesting idea. In could work but I would need to do offline experiments to check on what factors influence removal efficiency before I attempted it. Dripping it into a filter sock seems safer.

When I used to use lanthanum chloride, I always dripped it into the skimmer. I diluted the amount in 500ml of water and used a medical dripper with a needle inserted into the air intake tube. I used the drip rate as low as I could achieve with the dripper controls, probably 1 drop per second (when I try to go below that it would stop dripping somewhere halfway, needing to readjust to resume). My tangs seemed to be somewhat stressed from lanthanum chloride application, namely the blue tang. However, did not have any problems with it whatsoever, he was fine again the very next day. I was finding lots of yellowish goo with bad smell in the skimmer cup when finished. My phosphate was about 1-3 ppm at the time due to heavy feeding the mandarin dragonets, and with lanthanum I was able to drop it to about 0.1ppm but my LR was saturated with phosphate and the high PO4 readings were coming back in 2 days... IMO, GFO works better in such cases as it will constantly remove any leaking phosphate until all the accumulated phosphorus is removed and it would then stay low even when GFO reactor is turned off.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

thanks for your info. Randy. may I ask..

1. why would testing need to be done by me? wouldnt home test kits for po4 amd no3 work for this?

2. can you suggest any online sources that I could aquire sodium nitrate and sodium phosphate? I assume these will increase nitrate and phosphate in a reef.

3. any known chemicals to reduce po4 and no3?

thanks so much Randy!

I thought you were asking about a fully automated system.many people do what you are asking about. Food grade sodium nitrate and phosphate are good. Amazon, Loudwolf, etc. have them.

 

[ReefBeta]

I think lanthanum chloride based phosphate removers will be the easiest to automate in theory. Never use it so can't comment on the practicality. It should be also possible to automate GFO effectiveness by controlling the flow. The flow speed might not have too much room of adjustment because of the need for slight tumbling. But we can control the run time, like run 50 minutes per hour, or 10 minutes per hour.

NO3 is easier to automate by carbon dosing, via doser.

Nutrient input for coral is easiest via amino acid via doser.

The automation logic in my theory will be something like this:

IF carbon_dosage < minimal_carbon_dosage THEN increase_amino_dosage
IF nitrate_reading > nitrate_high_threshold THEN increase_carbon_dosage
IF phosphate_reading > phosphate_high_threshold THEN increase_phosphate_removal
IF nitrate_reading < nitrate_low_threshold THEN decrease_carbon_dosage
IF phosphate_reading < phosphate_low_threshold THEN decrease_phosphate_removal

Will need to limit the rate of adjustment. I think something like one or two adjustment in a single day.
All three components, amino dosing, carbon dosing, and phosphate removal (be it either GFO or lanthanum chloride), should be regular consistent dosing. The automation only trigger adjustment of their rates, not trigger dosing event.
I have minimal _carbon_dosage there to maintain a certain level of nutrient input. Might not be a good idea, just a thought.

But to be honestly, that's way too control freak for me already. I probably won't want to automate any of those. Just automate monitoring and adjust manually.

 

[H@rry]

Are there any way to monitor Nitrate and Phosphate levels with an Arduino? Any probes to read them like we do with pH?

 

[naterealbig]

I just watched this... So I hope to never have to use Lanthenum Chloride. It just does not seem like something worth risking fish and/or coral over. I use natural methods like chaeto in a sump and rarely even have to use GFO. This seems a bit over the top for me. Any thoughts?

i don't go through all the rigmarole of dilution, 5 micron socks, or drippers ..... i dose anywhere between 0.3 and 1.0 ml of commercial strength lanthanum chloride directly into the overflow of my 180 g display. I have not observed any negative impact on my fish - especially the 4 x Acanthurus, 2x Zebrasoma species, or my P. diacanthus.

i feed a measured amount of food consistently. If one takes the time to do this, automation becomes much easier.

 

[bar|none]

IF carbon_dosage < minimal_carbon_dosage THEN increase_amino_dosage
IF nitrate_reading > nitrate_high_threshold THEN increase_carbon_dosage
IF phosphate_reading > phosphate_high_threshold THEN increase_phosphate_removal
IF nitrate_reading < nitrate_low_threshold THEN decrease_carbon_dosage
IF phosphate_reading < phosphate_low_threshold THEN decrease_phosphate_removal

This is good. I feel like its my daily thought process with carbon dosing. But of course even more complicated with refugium, mixed reef. And its generic.. removal can just mean, feed less, wait it out. Surf the numbers, but understanding the levers of power is the important bit.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

i feed a measured amount of food consistently. If one takes the time to do this, automation becomes much easier.

I can see how this would be very helpful. Maybe I should consider this. One could even measure out the food in advance... kinda like meal prepping...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Are there any way to monitor Nitrate and Phosphate levels with an Arduino? Any probes to read them like we do with pH?

No.

 

[naterealbig]

I can see how this would be very helpful. Maybe I should consider this. One could even measure out the food in advance... kinda like meal prepping...

Yes, exactly. And incidentally, this becomes even easier if you prep your own fish/coral food... so in essence it is meal prep

i haven't done this yet, but as the fish number is heavy in my display, and I'm adding coral - it will be my go-to method. I'll make cubes instead of a flat pack, and voila! My nutrient import is precise, and consistent. Which means once i dial in nutrient export, nitrate and phosphate become easier to keep consistent as well (assuming my export methods are robust).

 

[nick0206]

Hey.
I have been in a hobby for 13 years and have tried several denitrification methods.
I am a fan of ULNS, like many of my friends in Israel. 90% of my friends use one of 4 methods
- Tropic Marin
- Korallen-zucht
- Aquaforest
- Red Sea
The second and third method of the four is ULNS.
I now use products from Tropic Marine and I think (and not only me) that this is the most flexible system, both for those who prefer ULNS, and for others.
In no case do I advertise this company and their products, but I really think that they have worked well on this, and its owner, Dr. Balling, is known to many in our hobby.
Thanks to this system, everything has become compact for me. No reactors or refugium. They offer "NP-Bacto-balance" to reduce nutrients. This is the case if phosphate and nitrate are balanced.
If the balance shifts towards phosphate, then instead of Bacto-balance, "Elimi-NP" is dosed. I have been using this couple for a year now and am very pleased. The denitrification problem that I struggled for years using other means (including using lanthanum-chloride) has ceased to be a problem. The main thing is to constantly do tests and understand what is happening in the tank. I found my balance and dosing. But sometimes tests show the upturn of nitrates or phosphates (you never know what died in the tank). In such cases, I increase the dose. A couple of days is usually enough to return everything to its place. I hope this experience helps someone.

 

[BeejReef]

22 years of experience! That's crazy. I'm not worthy to comment... but, seriously. For simplicity's sake, I might try running an overpowered refugium... something capable of holding a little too much algae, lit a little too well. Gradually, ofc, I'd tune it to bring my levels to near rock bottom. Guessing you'll find that you naturally have a slight imbalance between N and P, so your fuge will be unable to get one or the other to 0, bc it will be limited by not having the other element available.
Whichever hits 0 first, tinker with a modest dosing regiment to hold it in the detectable range.

Then you have two ways of controlling your levels that can be automated more easily than flow rates and that don't require frequent testing or monitoring exhaustible media.... The fuge photoperiod and your doser.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Hey.
I have been in a hobby for 13 years and have tried several denitrification methods.
I am a fan of ULNS, like many of my friends in Israel. 90% of my friends use one of 4 methods
- Tropic Marin
- Korallen-zucht
- Aquaforest
- Red Sea
The second and third method of the four is ULNS.
I now use products from Tropic Marine and I think (and not only me) that this is the most flexible system, both for those who prefer ULNS, and for others.
In no case do I advertise this company and their products, but I really think that they have worked well on this, and its owner, Dr. Balling, is known to many in our hobby.
Thanks to this system, everything has become compact for me. No reactors or refugium. They offer "NP-Bacto-balance" to reduce nutrients. This is the case if phosphate and nitrate are balanced.
If the balance shifts towards phosphate, then instead of Bacto-balance, "Elimi-NP" is dosed. I have been using this couple for a year now and am very pleased. The denitrification problem that I struggled for years using other means (including using lanthanum-chloride) has ceased to be a problem. The main thing is to constantly do tests and understand what is happening in the tank. I found my balance and dosing. But sometimes tests show the upturn of nitrates or phosphates (you never know what died in the tank). In such cases, I increase the dose. A couple of days is usually enough to return everything to its place. I hope this experience helps someone.

Ive recently started using Tropic Marin Plus NP. If I let my skimmer go full bore, my system will take nitrates and phosphate down to “zero”. So far so good. I dose the recommended amount, daily, via my doser, and see that my phosphate now hovers around 0.02ppm. I’m having to dose a bit of nitrates in addition though...

 

[Rst]

Yes, exactly. And incidentally, this becomes even easier if you prep your own fish/coral food... so in essence it is meal prep

i haven't done this yet, but as the fish number is heavy in my display, and I'm adding coral - it will be my go-to method. I'll make cubes instead of a flat pack, and voila! My nutrient import is precise, and consistent. Which means once i dial in nutrient export, nitrate and phosphate become easier to keep consistent as well (assuming my export methods are robust).

Could you share where/what kind of cube maker I can buy able to make small approximately 1/4” cubes? Thanks