Questions on Triton results

Brien · May 6, 2018

I have a couple of questions regarding my Triton test results.

I have very high Silicon and moderately high Lanthanum. When reading the help section to correct those things it mentions the use of an phosphate remover as a potential cause. I had been using Brightwell Aquatics Phosphat-E but stopped about a month and two 30% water changes before submitting my water for testing. So I'm trying to figure out if that was the cause to those high numbers. For the silicon it says "iron based" phosphate removers as a possible cause and don't know if Phosphat-E is iron based? I do use RO/DI water with fairly new medium in them.

My Tin was a little high too and I'm not sure why. I did discover a rusty magnet in my system months ago and have done a lot of water changes since. Other then pumps and other enclosed magnets the only other metal in my system are the brackets for my Kessil 360 lights, that are partially submerged in water but the black coating over the brackets appears intact.

taricha · May 7, 2018

Based on description, the brightwell product sounds like may be lanthanum based phosphate binder.
To have that much Si, you would probably need an ongoing source. Bad water or some odd substrate - quartz sand etc.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 7, 2018

Do you have any sort of diatom problem? If not, I’d ignore the Si.

The lanthanum is probably residual from when you used it.

The tin is probably not high enough to be a serious problem, but a metal binder like metasorb or a polyfilter may help.

Brien · May 7, 2018

I had a fair amount of GHA for about 9 months. I increased my water change frequency, used Reef Buster and was able to more or less eliminate it by December. The only reason I started to use Phosphat-E was because I was getting high phosphorus readings on my Hanna Ultra Low checker, which had me at .11 ppm yet the Triton said I was in the green for phosphorus and phosphate, which really makes me question the Hanna checker for this test.

Thanks for the feedback and I'll look into a metal binding agent. I didn't even know they existed before now.