DIY Fleece Drive setup with Lanthanum Chloride (Phosphate-E) enhancement

[HaulinAshe]

Like most every other DIY out there, once I get one thing working just right I have to change it, make it better, you know what I'm talking about!!! So...

I have been having great results with Phosphate-E and became comfortable with the idea of dosing it on a schedule. But I needed a way to pull some clean fleece into the chamber to effectively and rapidly filter the cloudiness. No filter socks for me!

There are two inputs; FleeceDirty - monitors water level sensors and advances based on scheduled iterations whenever the fleece chamber water level is high, LaCL3 FleeceAdv - kicks in on a schedule to do substantial fresh fleece advances every 15-minutes to provide extra filtration of the LaCL3 cloudiness.
Both roll into the combiner FLEECE DRIVE that actually drives the output port/fleece drive motor.

FleeceDirty



LaCl3 FleeceAdv



FLEECE DRIVE

 

[thom_smith]

Ok. So I have been ultra cautious with Lanthanum. Dilute 1:9 with RO water and dose directly into 5 micron sock. And when I do, its imported Mastertronic results with Hydros controlled dynamic dosing so I only had to do the math a couple times to get it dialed in. Have seen very good results with this method but cumbersome swapping fleece for sock and back again. Have been thinking about dosing into a reverse osmosis canister with 10 and 5 micron sediment filters then governing flow through the canisters with a solenoid or ball valve. This sounds much easier but not confident in the fleece handling it. Are you seeing expected phosphate decreases in just 90 minutes dosing into a standard 80 micron trigger fleece? Adding over time with a dosing pump? Or putting it all in at once and pulling it out over the 90 minute schedule? How did you arrive at the maximum 16 second run time? Is that how long it took to advance all the submerged fleece? Are you pushing mad flow? For sake of understanding, what is your volume and how much are you dosing/what phosphate range are you maintaining? I'm about 200 gallons pushing 7x turnover and many, many probably 20x with powerheads. Potentially dosing up to 70ml (remember, diluted 1:9) to reduce from 0.2 MT peak scale to 0.06.

 

[HaulinAshe]

Tank is 215 gal peninsula.

Flow is Sicce SDC 9.0 running at 71-75% with 7-feet of head pressure. That calculates to roughly 1400 gph. Internal tank flow is two Icecap 4k Gyres running Nutrient Export pattern at 70%.

My Trigger sump has serious buildup on the fleece rollers that are NOT removable, so my fleece advance times are probably longer than typical for a new system or one with rollers that actually spin. It's really a drag, har har har.

I dose 20ml Phosphate-E at once, directly into the fleece chamber. That's just over 50% recommended maximum dose for that size system. The advance times are based on what was required to visually clear the cloudiness in 2.0 hours or less. Phosphate reduction is as expected and typically 0.01 reduced every two days. Current phosphate is 0.08. I heavily feed a heavily stocked tank with several tangs, including a wild Yellow, with pellets and Nori.

The Hydros setup I created has allowed me to comfortably automate the very delicate process of dosing LaCl3 and persistently reduce the average Phosphates of the system down to acceptable levels. Your advance times, intervals and durations will likely vary significantly. But I am comfortable touting the overall concept.

 

[thom_smith]

My Tang Gang is what I'm concerned about. They don't tolerate excess lanthum very well. I read some horror stories dosing and wiping them out. That's why I am so cautious. Mine are stocked heavy and well fed. There's a sheet of nori in there pretty much all daylight hours with new sheets frequently. Have never dosed over 70ml--actually 7ml highly diluted at 1:9--over three hours into a 5 micron sock. Sock is washed after every three hours of dosing and discarded after six months or so. Often it *needed* to be washed capturing when the 80 micron fleece doesn't. Started out of necesity to decrease out of control phosphates. Have learned over time to precisely calculate dosing, initially testing like a fanatic before and after to ensure expected decrease and lanthanum was completely removed. Actually at the point now where I have reverse calculated my exact water volume based on lanthanum dosing. Like the idea this works in a pinch but think I am sticking with my socks and sediment filters. This is one of those things I don't do frequently, don't particularly like doing and somewhat fearful of.

 

[Carlos]

My tangs are OK with Lanthanum (I have 4 in my tank). The trick is to keep the dosage small by testing as often as possible. When my Mastertronic tests daily, HYDROS adds tiny amounts of Lanthanum to the tank. I hardly see any cloudiness, and I only run the Klir filters. If you only test once a week or a month, you will need to add more Lanthanum at once, which could cause problems. I have been doing it for over a year without problems, and I can keep my daily PO4 levels very close to .04.