Brightwell Phosphate-E Idea

[DrZoidburg]

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.

When you are dosing milligram levels of lanthanum chloride to dropout milligram levels of phosphate. What you mostly see left behind is lanthanum(iii)phosphate. If any calcium precipitated it would be milligram levels of calcium, magnesium, carbonates, and other hydroxides. Which would be even hard to see. Those would in turn dissolve back into tank water. Much like when you add sodium carbonate and you see the white cloud that disappears back into water. So if you have a 100L tank with 1ppm phosphate. That is .1 grams of phosphate. Even if you added whole dose all at once it wouldn't take out the .1 grams phosphate right away. I used one ball as reference for simplicity. You would have lanthanum salts floating around for a while as well. 18 milligrams of lanthanum chloride injection is enough to kill a rat. Aquatic animals are much more sensitive. Their instructions say 5ml takes out 1ppm in 20 gallons. Its almost a 1:1 reaction so I assume one cap would have .195 +/- grams LaCl3. Dosed 20 ML like said earlier. That is about .78 grams or = 780 milligrams or = 780 ppm. That could kill 43 rats .186grams/20gallons LaPo4 after. Again that would depend on how long it takes to react with the phosphates. Much less than 780 milligrams over time but still possibly very toxic levels to fish.

 

[Mz. Fix It]

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 just came across your post, as I too am trying to figure this whole Phosphat-E Brightwell product out. I have been using NoPox for over a year now it has done great at keeping my nitrates at a low level but hasn't done anything for my phosphates. Perhaps it has and maybe if I wasn't using NoPox my phos would be much higher. Currently with my Hanna tester my phos comes in at .81 and when I mailed my water sample to Triton they show it at .82 and claim it's at a high critical level. Although everything in my tank appears to be rocking along fine I felt I must follow the rules before anything begins to happen.

So now I'm starting to work with this Phos-E product. As others have noted about dosing too fast I decided to put mine on a dosing pump and dose very slowly. I have the Red Sea 525XL so I have a guesstimate of 115 to 120 gallons after taking rocks, sand and equipment into account. I dosed .5 ml a day for a week, nothing changed. So I then bumped it up to 1 ml a day for week 2, still no change. I could obviously continue on with small weekly increases and see how it goes at this point but decided to start researching to see what others have done. I also emailed Brightwell Aquatics almost 2 weeks ago and they have still yet to respond.

With all that said, I'm curious how your Phosphat-E journey is going? Lowering phosphate successfully? Still doing small daily doses? Are you going to continue on this same route? My hope is I can get my phos dialed in where I need it to be and then keep Phos-E going on a low daily dose via a pump so it can keep my numbers steady and in the right place, just as NoPox has done very successfully with my nitrate level.

I have gone the GFO route before but I did not like the up and down cycling, not to mention the ongoing hassles with changing out my reactor. I only found 1 spot for the reactor and it was a PITA to service.

Any updates you can share will be greatly appreciated.

 

[reefingaz]

I just came across your post, as I too am trying to figure this whole Phosphat-E Brightwell product out. I have been using NoPox for over a year now it has done great at keeping my nitrates at a low level but hasn't done anything for my phosphates. Perhaps it has and maybe if I wasn't using NoPox my phos would be much higher. Currently with my Hanna tester my phos comes in at .81 and when I mailed my water sample to Triton they show it at .82 and claim it's at a high critical level. Although everything in my tank appears to be rocking along fine I felt I must follow the rules before anything begins to happen.

So now I'm starting to work with this Phos-E product. As others have noted about dosing too fast I decided to put mine on a dosing pump and dose very slowly. I have the Red Sea 525XL so I have a guesstimate of 115 to 120 gallons after taking rocks, sand and equipment into account. I dosed .5 ml a day for a week, nothing changed. So I then bumped it up to 1 ml a day for week 2, still no change. I could obviously continue on with small weekly increases and see how it goes at this point but decided to start researching to see what others have done. I also emailed Brightwell Aquatics almost 2 weeks ago and they have still yet to respond.

With all that said, I'm curious how your Phosphat-E journey is going? Lowering phosphate successfully? Still doing small daily doses? Are you going to continue on this same route? My hope is I can get my phos dialed in where I need it to be and then keep Phos-E going on a low daily dose via a pump so it can keep my numbers steady and in the right place, just as NoPox has done very successfully with my nitrate level.

I have gone the GFO route before but I did not like the up and down cycling, not to mention the ongoing hassles with changing out my reactor. I only found 1 spot for the reactor and it was a PITA to service.

Any updates you can share will be greatly appreciated.

It worked amazing! Here is what I did and over A period of a week my phosphate dropped and it’s been a month and now I do a weekly maintenance dose and it’s keeping it down. I got a water bottle and drilled a small hole at the bottom and put an airline at the bottom. I mix 10-15ml of Phosphate-E with the rest RODI in the water bottle. I slowly drip that over a few hours In my sump next to my skimmer or into my sock. I now do this once a week and none of my tangs or corals had ANY problems. 100% safe doing it that way and my tank is doing so much better. Highly recommend using this product just mix with rodi and drip into sump.

 

[MikeyG]

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.

Some studies have shown that the excess Lanthanum in the water will eventually stich to the hills of the fish leading to respirator problems.
Most importantly it prevents the proper flow of O2 across their gills which is certainly not a good situation.

 

[CoralB]

I have used phosphat-e for a long time and never lost fish or coral . Half daily dose max into the filter . Test 24-48 hours later then dose again til you reach good parameters . A drip method wouldn’t hurt

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Some studies have shown that the excess Lanthanum in the water will eventually stich to the hills of the fish leading to respirator problems.
Most importantly it prevents the proper flow of O2 across their gills which is certainly not a good situation.

Do you have links to these studies? I've not seen anything like that, although I don't doubt it may be possible. I just worry that it is a hypothesis that has morphed into a study as it is retold across the internet.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I have used phosphat-e for a long time and never lost fish or coral . Half daily dose max into the filter . Test 24-48 hours later then dose again til you reach good parameters . A drip method wouldn’t hurt

Most folks use lanthanum OK. A few have apparent problems, and I'm not sure what the important differences are.

 

[CoralB]

Most folks use lanthanum OK. A few have apparent problems, and I'm not sure what the important differences are.

Yes ! Your right . I’m still scratching my head with people having success with vibrant and It was a negative experience for me .