Brightwell Aquatics Phosphate E

[MichaelB]

From my research online I believe it's active ingredient is Lanthom Chloride.
I picked up a small bottle with hopes of lowering p04 to get better polyp extension/ coloration from the acros.
I plan to use it and have done a good bit of research videos from reefbum, @Thales, others, and r2r fourm articles as well. So I have a general understanding of the risks and concept. Though I would also like thoughts and advice from experienced members here.

Especially the sps keepers.


I've seen several posts about LC causing fish deaths. Yet it seems as though a good bit of those people used highly concentrated type that was actually meant to be used in swimming pools.
The others seemed to use way to much of the product or just dumped it into their display and not a skimmer or a 10 micron smaller filter sock.

A few post mentioned that phosphate is is not nearly as concentrated.

Based on research I Picked up some 5 micron filter socks and plan to manually slowly drop by drop add some inside the filter sock. I believe many dose this into their skimmers. I wouldn't be opposed to this in the future. But would hesiate to do it now being I just got my skimmer to actually start skiming after raising the water level in my sum higher.

Current p04 ranges from .4- .37 I haven't been able to get it lower even using Rowaphos and only feeding the tank once per day.

Tank in question is my 40gallon sps cube.
Between tank, sump minus rocks and crushed coral, and equipment; I estimate the system water volume to be somewhere between 50-55 gallons.

Any advice on how to figure out a overly safe dose. I would rather undershoot things and have to add more later than put tank or fish at risk.

@derek_SR tagging you because I know u dose this into your skimmer. Not sure who else in the club uses this or has used it. Yet I would welcome all advice from those with solid experience with phosphate E, or similar products.

 

[H2OPlayar]

Filter socks are a pain because they clog fast. I use LaCl all the time now. I run a dosing line into the skimmer neck and drip 2-4 mL/day in my big tank. And in my 120, I just dosed 10mL into the skimmer neck to see how much I would drop. I got a lot of we skim out, and phosphates dropped from 1.7 to 1.0. So I did another 4 mL and we'll see where that goes.

Long story short, measure phosphates in the tank. do the math on what your tank water volume is for how much to lower it to a safe region, dose about 1/4 of that in the skimmer neck as slowly as you have the patience for, and see what happens. Expect the skimmer to foam up and that is a good thing. Be ready to change some water to replace what comes out from the wet skim.

 

[Alexander1312]

I think this topic has been explored in as much detail as possible already - see below. I would not assume phosphate E is less concentrated than other products unless you try and determine it is less effective with the recommended dose.

Guide: Lanthanum Chloride dosing for Phosphate control

DISCLAIMER: I am not a chemist, just a well-read hobbyist at best. Your experience and/or results may not be the same as what I describe here. Go slowly, pay attention to your tank, and know that there are always risks. This topic seems to come up often enough, so rather than reference people...

www.bareefers.org

 

[MichaelB]

Filter socks are a pain because they clog fast. I use LaCl all the time now. I run a dosing line into the skimmer neck and drip 2-4 mL/day in my big tank. And in my 120, I just dosed 10mL into the skimmer neck to see how much I would drop. I got a lot of we skim out, and phosphates dropped from 1.7 to 1.0. So I did another 4 mL and we'll see where that goes.

Long story short, measure phosphates in the tank. do the math on what your tank water volume is for how much to lower it to a safe region, dose about 1/4 of that in the skimmer neck as slowly as you have the patience for, and see what happens. Expect the skimmer to foam up and that is a good thing. Be ready to change some water to replace what comes out from the wet skim.

So this will cause skimmer to skim more?

I was concerned about it possibly escaping out of my skimmer. I have a nyos 120 skimmer if that makes a difference.

So it's better to drop into skimmer than into a 5 micron filter sock in your opinion.

 

[MichaelB]

I think this topic has been explored in as much detail as possible already - see below. I would not assume phosphate E is less concentrated than other products unless you try and determine it is less effective with the recommended dose.

Guide: Lanthanum Chloride dosing for Phosphate control

DISCLAIMER: I am not a chemist, just a well-read hobbyist at best. Your experience and/or results may not be the same as what I describe here. Go slowly, pay attention to your tank, and know that there are always risks. This topic seems to come up often enough, so rather than reference people...

www.bareefers.org

My mention of phosphate E was Soely based on comments in some videos of it being more dilouted than stuff used for swimming pools. I did refrence that thread here you brought and I followed along as people were posting on it.

My plan is to kinda hand dose with a sringe or pipette a drop at a time. My hydros dosers are both used for afr currently. I have other 4 head bubble magnus dosers but I've never used any of them before. So this doesn't seem like something I wanna use with untested dosing pumps were I'm more likely to screw up and dose to much from setting it wrong or hitting the wrong button.

If things go well I would consider getting another hydros doser at some point if this is something that needs to be done more than on occasion.


After some of the comments here. I will probably remove the top of skimmer and add the drops into the hole where skimmate comes up from. I will probably also add the 5 micron filter sock just as a precaution in case skimmer misses anything. I have a extra one I can swap out with.

Just wanna figure out do I want to mix this stuff with rodi water once I figure out a dose or just directly use the phosphate E as is. This is by hand and I won't be rushing by any means but I won't be doing this of many hours like a dosing pump would. Maybe 1-2 drops every x mins or so yet to be determined.

 

[Alexander1312]

My mention of phosphate E was Soely based on comments in some videos of it being more dilouted than stuff used for swimming pools. I did refrence that thread here you brought and I followed along as people were posting on it.

My plan is to kinda hand dose with a sringe or pipette a drop at a time. My hydros dosers are both used for afr currently. I have other 4 head bubble magnus dosers but I've never used any of them before. So this doesn't seem like something I wanna use with untested dosing pumps were I'm more likely to screw up and dose to much from setting it wrong or hitting the wrong button.

If things go well I would consider getting another hydros doser at some point if this is something that needs to be done more than on occasion.


After some of the comments here. I will probably remove the top of skimmer and add the drops into the hole where skimmate comes up from. I will probably also add the 5 micron filter sock just as a precaution in case skimmer misses anything. I have a extra one I can swap out with.

Just wanna figure out do I want to mix this stuff with rodi water once I figure out a dose or just directly use the phosphate E as is. This is by hand and I won't be rushing by any means but I won't be doing this of many hours like a dosing pump would. Maybe 1-2 drops every x mins or so yet to be determined.

I would dilute and hand-dose until you get a feeling for this. And then consider auto-dosing. I do phosban from little fishies and have diluted this 1 to 5 I believe. Results come slow but they come within a week or less. Still, I am not a fan of LC and only use this as a last resort or ideally not at all.

 

[MichaelB]

I would dilute and hand-dose until you get a feeling for this. And then consider auto-dosing. I do phosban from little fishies and have diluted this 1 to 5 I believe. Results come slow but they come within a week or less. Still, I am not a fan of LC and only use this as a last resort or ideally not at all.

Yes the only gfo I've used is Rowaphos. I have some brs gfo but I've never used it before. I trust Rowaphos as I've used it over 2 years. However with price of Rowaphos it would get crazy expensive. I suspect I would need to swap it out once a week to actually get p04 to drop. I swap it roughly every 3-4 weeks and it seems to hold the po4 without having it climb higher but it's definitely not enough to actually bring it down.

 

[JVU]

My mention of phosphate E was Soely based on comments in some videos of it being more dilouted than stuff used for swimming pools. I did refrence that thread here you brought and I followed along as people were posting on it.

My plan is to kinda hand dose with a sringe or pipette a drop at a time. My hydros dosers are both used for afr currently. I have other 4 head bubble magnus dosers but I've never used any of them before. So this doesn't seem like something I wanna use with untested dosing pumps were I'm more likely to screw up and dose to much from setting it wrong or hitting the wrong button.

If things go well I would consider getting another hydros doser at some point if this is something that needs to be done more than on occasion.


After some of the comments here. I will probably remove the top of skimmer and add the drops into the hole where skimmate comes up from. I will probably also add the 5 micron filter sock just as a precaution in case skimmer misses anything. I have a extra one I can swap out with.

Just wanna figure out do I want to mix this stuff with rodi water once I figure out a dose or just directly use the phosphate E as is. This is by hand and I won't be rushing by any means but I won't be doing this of many hours like a dosing pump would. Maybe 1-2 drops every x mins or so yet to be determined.

To reduce the chance of free lanthanum escaping into the tank, you want to dose very slowly over long periods of time, so hand dosing is probably impractical IMO. The sock or skimmate both collect the La only after it reacts with PO4. Unreacted lanthanum goes right through. So dosing more than how much PO4 is right there at the time is when people get into problems I think.

When you say remove the top of the skimmer… I think you mean briefly just for the hand dosing? At the risk of stating the obvious you need the top to be on for it to skim properly, so for auto dosing you have to put the tube through the lid somehow.

You mentioned adding a 5 um sock in addition to the skimmer as a backup. If you zip tie it to the outlet of the skimmer, when (not if) it clogs even a little it will overflow your skimmer cup and therefore dump it all back into your water, so I don’t recommend that. Maybe you had something else in mind though.

Regarding getting comfortable/confidence with a new doser, just program it and set it up with water at first. Demonstrate to yourself that over the course of a day it’s dosing as expected.

 

[MichaelB]

Dose calculated using this dosing chart. Link is below.

http://larryl.emailplus.org.user.fm/fish/dosing-instructions-phosphate-removers.html

I took @Alexander1312 advice and took 1.8ML of Phosphate E, and did times 5 equals 9ml.

I than added 1.8 ML of Phosphate E to 9ML of rodi water.

*** The 1.8 mil according to the calcaulator is 50% of the recommended dose. I plan to maybe use 1/3 of the solution. Which going by visual observation doesn't seem like much. (I'm not going to go by looks just say it looks like so little.)

I just tested and got .37 po4 with hannas ultra low range checker.

I will only add a few drops in to the skimmer wait a bit than test.

 

[MichaelB]

To reduce the chance of free lanthanum escaping into the tank, you want to dose very slowly over long periods of time, so hand dosing is probably impractical IMO. The sock or skimmate both collect the La only after it reacts with PO4. Unreacted lanthanum goes right through. So dosing more than how much PO4 is right there at the time is when people get into problems I think.

When you say remove the top of the skimmer… I think you mean briefly just for the hand dosing? At the risk of stating the obvious you need the top to be on for it to skim properly, so for auto dosing you have to put the tube through the lid somehow.

You mentioned adding a 5 um sock in addition to the skimmer as a backup. If you zip tie it to the outlet of the skimmer, when (not if) it clogs even a little it will overflow your skimmer cup and therefore dump it all back into your water, so I don’t recommend that. Maybe you had something else in mind though.

Regarding getting comfortable/confidence with a new doser, just program it and set it up with water at first. Demonstrate to yourself that over the course of a day it’s dosing as expected.

By using filter sock I just mean actually using a filter sock. I typically don't use any filter socks or floss at all.

Using as in placing a filter sock under the return drain. I intended to remove the top of skimmer drop stuff in and put it back.

The rodi and phosphate E mix would be added to that center hole under cap where foam exits the skimmer body only 1-2 drops spread out.

 

[derek_SR]

Huge thread on this in the guide I wrote that Alex linked above. I would read all that first!

 

[MichaelB]

Huge thread on this in the guide I wrote that Alex linked above. I would read all that first!

I' ve read it twice, and followed along when the posts were being made.

Just wanted to throw my plan out there to make sure I didn't have anything obviously wrong in my current plan or I didn't overlook something.

 

[MichaelB]

I did go back and instead of times 5, I went with times 50 diluted into rodi@1.8 phosphate E, which is already 50% of the total Recommended dosem using a full dose would put me at a 100- 1 ratio.

So feels a bit safer now. And eaiser than trying to count individual drops. I can just count the MLs instead over time in a way that's repeatable and easier to tract effects and results.

 

[Bryce.martin23]

Unreacted lanthanum goes right through. So dosing more than how much PO4 is right there at the time is when people get into problems I think.

This is my understanding as well, if you dose into a skimmer body the LC only has enough reaction with phosphate inside the skimmer and thats it. Ive toyed with this a lot, best results I had was doing the math on what I thought was needed, placed that amount in my top off and had kameor peristaltic pump dose diluted LC into the skimmer at all times. Worked like a charm.