Ideas on quick phosphate control

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by TimT

Hi Steve,



Sorry my bad. Guess I engaged fingers before brain was fully functioning from the coffee this morning. LoL



I have not observed this in my system with the Purple and Yellow Tangs but I dose small amounts of high purity Foz Down frequently, have a consistently low Phosphate level and don't have an old Scopas Tang. Here is the article to which you may be referring to.
http://www.beananimal.com/articles/l...and-tangs.aspx

Some things I noticed about the article.
1. A small tank of 75 gallons.
2. Most likely using the highly concentrated pool version as they dosed 1ml/day.
2. Only the Scopas Tang was affected
3. It looked like it had been in a fight with another tang and then developed a secondary bacterial infection.
4. After massive water change the fish begins to improve.
5. Lanthanum dosing stopped.

My questions are? Was it the massive water change that helped the fish get better or was it the discontinuing Lanthanum dosing? Did the whole episode have anything to do with Lanthanum at all? The author makes it quite clear that it is anecdotal info.

There are a lot of public aquariums that rely on Lanthanum to control phosphate in their displays. Some use sand filters to remove flocks but I doubt it catches all of them or any non reacted Lanthanum.

As for the SPS I have some fairly sensitive species such as Echinata and they are fine. I will be doing pics today so can take one of the Echinata.



I have not observed this at all and I have both acrylic and glass tanks in the system. In the tank where I removed a lot of Phosphate(1400mg/l) I did not notice this either. I removed the Phosphate over a period of 2 weeks.

Here is the article that talks about the precipitation and SPS issues.
http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/cont...ling-phosphate

It must be noted that Daniel removed 1.3mg/l in a couple of days. Here is the quote from the article "They were adapted to a phosphate concentration of 1.6 mg/l, and in consequence grew slowly, and it seems that when this concentration dropped to 0.3 mg/l within a few days as a result of the drastic treatment, the complex physiological processes that take place in these corals were thrown out of balance."

From both of these old articles one can deduce that:
1. Lanthanum may or may not affect old Scopas Tangs.
2. Don't use too much too fast as you will shock corals and may cause precipitates to form.

The ideal best practice may be to dose the Lanthanum in a separate tank and trickle the water through it as you suggested. Next best would to slowly add diluted Foz Down into a 5-10 micron sock and have a small pump pumping water from sump through it. At the end of things we may or may not find that the precautions were necessary. It is up to the hobbyist how they want to operate their reef tanks. It has been over 6 years since people have started using Lanthanum in their tanks. If there was an issue one would think it would be all over the internet. Just my Timbits. ;-)

Cheers,
Tim

Thanks for the replies Tim, that was one of the articles but there were about 3 more I was reading about the tangs, which had me wondering about it.. one instance and I wouldn't have even mentioned it.

6 years now... hmmm I've been under my rock far to long LOL

Have you ever stopped dosing ? and if so did your phosphates start creeping back up? I am looking at this for the purpose of cooking/curing a bunch of rock I have. I am going to basically do the real cooking, where you put it in total darkness with a heater, water flow and skimmer and frequent water changes go get the bug and bacterial life going but kill off any algae's and clean out the pours of the rock. My interest is will Lanthanum provide a permanent phosphate removal or will it have to be used long term?

Also from what I have been reading its effectiveness is reduced the lower the Phosphate levels and they seam to be recommending it in conjunction with other phosphate removers. Is this your experience also?

Thanks
Steve

[reefwars]

Yes they can come back but that has nothing to do with the lanthanum itself and will happen with any binding remover. Simply put its effective enough to remove what's readable pretty fast , then if removed as phosphates slowly leach out they will then show up again eventually if enough is provided and no other methods put in place are effective enough to remove it.

[TimT]

Hi Steve,

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

Thanks for the replies Tim, that was one of the articles but there were about 3 more I was reading about the tangs, which had me wondering about it.. one instance and I wouldn't have even mentioned it.

No worries. With good info people can make good decisions...

I will try to keep a few Scopas Tangs and see what happens.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

6 years now... hmmm I've been under my rock far to long LOL

Yes, I felt the same way and I spent a lot of $$$ on that High Capacity GFO for a few years. That reactor was such a pain!!!

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

Have you ever stopped dosing ? and if so did your phosphates start creeping back up?

I have not stopped dosing and regularly check my phosphate. It was 0.02mg/l this afternoon. Phosphates are a result of decaying organics... from uneaten food, dead creatures and decaying algae. If there is life and death there will be phosphates. Kinda like taxes... no getting away from it. LoL.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I am looking at this for the purpose of cooking/curing a bunch of rock I have.

That is a great use for it due to it's low cost. You can remove all the bound up Phosphate in the rocks by just letting it leach out and then removing it with the Foz Down. No need to keep doing lots of water changes but just remove it slowly.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

My interest is will Lanthanum provide a permanent phosphate removal or will it have to be used long term?

With Foz Down you can remove all bound up Phosphate from the rocks. Once however you start feeding the system and life resumes there will be new phosphate created that will need to be removed from the water via Foz Down. So the answer is Yes and Yes.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

Also from what I have been reading its effectiveness is reduced the lower the Phosphate levels and they seam to be recommending it in conjunction with other phosphate removers. Is this your experience also?

With Lanthanum it is possible to reduce Phosphate down to 0.0015mg/l or 150 parts per billion. My experience is that I can get the Phosphate levels low enough in the system that I do not need to rely on other methods of Phosphate control. I only use Foz Down in my system.

Cheers,
Tim