DereksReef77
Active Member
Hi there I bought some phosphate rx and don't know if I should use it or not. I wanted to get some feedback from anyone who has used it in the past or currently good or bad. Thanks
Phosphate Rx
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AllSignsPointToFish
"No Longer The Guy Without FaceBook"
If this is the lanthanum chloride, I've heard it works well, especially in conjunction with a filter sock. Why are you wanting to use this over other phosphate export methods?
OP
OP
DereksReef77
Active Member
Well I have a 4'×4'×16" frag tank full of zoas and acans and shrooms. Some pretty high end and always have high phosphates. Nitrates are always 0-5 api test kit. Phosphates read .17 on hannah phosphate checker. If I use gfo my zoas hate it and shrink up cause it takes out too much too fast im guessing. But I don't want to ruin things with something I haven't used yet. I haven't gotten around to putting on an algae scrubber yet.
AllSignsPointToFish
"No Longer The Guy Without FaceBook"
Have you tried carbon dosing? you should consider that as it may work very well for you.
Kungpaoshizi
Valuable Member
Sounds like food imbalances or the rock is full of po4.
If you do LC, add a drop everyday, to see how the tank takes it. Filter socks are pretty worthless, average particle size that precipitates is .5 microns iirc.
Otherwise I would say carbon dosing is worth it. Check out nopox, they've done all the work, it's pretty easy. And get some Reef Energy, your corals will thank you, but more importantly it's part of the balance with nopox to drive po4 down and leave nitrates for the corals.
If you do LC, add a drop everyday, to see how the tank takes it. Filter socks are pretty worthless, average particle size that precipitates is .5 microns iirc.
Otherwise I would say carbon dosing is worth it. Check out nopox, they've done all the work, it's pretty easy. And get some Reef Energy, your corals will thank you, but more importantly it's part of the balance with nopox to drive po4 down and leave nitrates for the corals.
AllSignsPointToFish
"No Longer The Guy Without FaceBook"
If I recall correctly, the idea of the filter sock was not to filter out the precipitate, but rather to add the lanthanum chloride to a spot with some residence time to allow the reaction to occur. I'm not a lanthanum chloride user, so I'm not speaking from personal experience.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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Lanthanum is one of many methods for reducing phosphate.
I compare them here:
Phosphate In The Reef Aquarium
https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/?p=3184
from it:
Soluble Metals to Bind Phosphate
There are several approaches that add soluble metals to bind and precipitate phosphate. The most popular involves adding lanthanum, which precipitates as lanthanum phosphate and/or lanthanum carbonate (which itself may contain some lanthanum phosphate). The lanthanum approach is widely used in the pool industry to reduce phosphate, and seems to often work well in aquaria. It is also very inexpensive, using products such as Seaklear (make sure it is a pure lanthanum version as mixtures with other metals also exist). Note that this method reduces alkalinity, as removing carbonate and phosphate as a lanthanum precipitate will reduce alkalinity.
One way to use it is to drip is slowly just upstream of a particulate filter to catch and remove a substantial amount of the precipitate that is formed. One drawback to the lanthanum approach is that much of the precipitated material may escape capture and simply settle out in the system somewhere. That may not be an issue, but many aquarists do not prefer to accumulate such material. A second concern is that some people have observed problematic reactions from aquarium inhabitants. While there are not a lot of such stories, it is enough for many aquarists to look for other options.
However, due to its low cost, this approach is especially well suited to outside of the tank operations, such as the removal of excess phosphate from phosphate-contaminated calcium carbonate rock that is later to be added to a reef aquarium.
Soluble iron has also been used in this way, but not nearly so often as lanthanum.
I compare them here:
Phosphate In The Reef Aquarium
https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/?p=3184
from it:
Soluble Metals to Bind Phosphate
There are several approaches that add soluble metals to bind and precipitate phosphate. The most popular involves adding lanthanum, which precipitates as lanthanum phosphate and/or lanthanum carbonate (which itself may contain some lanthanum phosphate). The lanthanum approach is widely used in the pool industry to reduce phosphate, and seems to often work well in aquaria. It is also very inexpensive, using products such as Seaklear (make sure it is a pure lanthanum version as mixtures with other metals also exist). Note that this method reduces alkalinity, as removing carbonate and phosphate as a lanthanum precipitate will reduce alkalinity.
One way to use it is to drip is slowly just upstream of a particulate filter to catch and remove a substantial amount of the precipitate that is formed. One drawback to the lanthanum approach is that much of the precipitated material may escape capture and simply settle out in the system somewhere. That may not be an issue, but many aquarists do not prefer to accumulate such material. A second concern is that some people have observed problematic reactions from aquarium inhabitants. While there are not a lot of such stories, it is enough for many aquarists to look for other options.
However, due to its low cost, this approach is especially well suited to outside of the tank operations, such as the removal of excess phosphate from phosphate-contaminated calcium carbonate rock that is later to be added to a reef aquarium.
Soluble iron has also been used in this way, but not nearly so often as lanthanum.
Breadman03
Valuable Member
WRT Randy's post, I am planning on removing a couple rocks at a time to treat in a QT tank where my DT "waste" water goes before going down the drain. It should allow me to greatly reduce the risk involved while getting all the accumulated PO4 out of my rock.
