Ideas on quick phosphate control

[Aquattro]

I think fozdown will be the tool of choice. And prayers to the reef gods.

[AquaticExpressions]

Phos guard is very effective but because of how fast phosphate is removed it may cause your corals to be stressed. Ferric oxide would gradually remove phosphate which is a safer bet.

Best of luck!

[mikellini]

Originally Posted by AquaticExpressions

Phos guard is very effective but because of how fast phosphate is removed it may cause your corals to be stressed. Ferric oxide would gradually remove phosphate which is a safer bet.

Best of luck!

It could get quite pricey (I'm thinking in the hundreds of dollars) to use GFO with such high concentrations and large water volumes. It would exhaust quite quickly, necessitating frequent changing.

Seaklear phosphate remover (a product for swimming pools, lanthanum chloride) in a 32 oz bottle removes 3ppm from 10,000 gallons for around $30.

[TimT]

Hi Brad,

I would recommend the Foz Down. ;-)

It is a Lanthanum based product and when used in moderation does not cause a noticeable alkalinity drift. I have recently sourced the high purity Lanthanum directly so have been able to double the concentration and keep the price the same. :-) The bang for the buck of Foz Down is DOUBLED but consequently more care must be exercised in its application... don't accidentally spill the bottle into your tank.

The problem with the pool type Lanthanum removers is that there is several different grades of Lanthanum available on the market. I highly doubt they are going to use a more expensive higher purity Lanthanum for swimming pools.

It would cost you less than $30 to completely remove the Phosphate from that tank using Foz Down. If the Foz Down is dosed in an ATO or through a dosing pump the phosphate that the old rock releases will also be removed. Thus you won't have to replace the rock.

I personally have used it on a 240 gallon aquarium which had 1.4mg/l of Phosphate and the rock was 5+ years old. Last year the tank had an average phosphate level of <0.08mg/l with no gfo.

I use Foz Down daily on my 600 gallon Acro system and the colours are amazing.

There is a CanReef member who has used it to do a similar thing on his display tank in his store. Perhaps he will chime in on this thread.

Cheers,
Tim

[Ulmo]

Agent Green is another lanthanum chloride product at Big Al's that I used on my pukani. Seemed to work good.

[nrosdal]

I too use the phoz down with great results. But be sure not to drop it to fast as i have gotten carried away a couple times after testing and added an extra dose on top of my dosers normal amount and found a random white sps the next day. Just find a dose that steadily yet quickly drops it and keep it pretty steady until you are within range.

[StirCrazy]

there has been some reports of lanthanum chloride affecting Tangs of the genus Zebrasoma. any experience with this ?

Steve

[StirCrazy]

plus there are some other inherent problem like removing the resultant flocculent and the potential for deposits on equipment and tank sides, which reportably is very hard to remove from the glass and causes problems with the impellers in pumps.

Steve

[mikellini]

Again why you would do a slow drip into a filter sock to catch the precipitate

[Aquattro]

I set him up with foz down, now he's gotta deal with it The number of tangs has been significantly reduced.