Brute container leaching phosphates...

[LinkinReef]

I have been getting a very small amount of phosphates when I test the water in my DT with a hanna checker about .05-.07 I decided to find the source for this so I first tested the ro/di water and came out at 0.00, then tested a small amount of fresh saltwater mix in a cup and the test came out at 0.00. I made a small batch of fresh saltwater mix in my 20g brute container and the test came out at 0.18...

What is the best way to clean a container like this and have it not leach phosphates? Is it a better idea to just get a new container instead? If so, what other kind of containers could I use?

[OrionN]

I am not sure about phosphate but new plastic container not rated for food leach toxin into the water. Eric Borneman mention this in one of his post a few years back regarding Brute garbage cans here:
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic101230-9-1.aspx

It appears that new can is really bad but once it is used for a while it is better. I am sure we can generalize this to other type of container. I use food grade plastic container and smaller aquariums for my water mixing. They are expensive but I guess I do spend a lot on my aquarium, or so said my wife.

[AquaticFins]

I've heard many stories of this happening with Brute containers, so I don't use them anymore. I use these, personally: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/ite...3178&catid=871

They're not cheap, but they've been proven safe by many a hobbyist and institution and come in sizes from twenty gallons to several thousand.

You could try using a little lanthanum chloride and see if you can get it all out...I don't know how long they leach for. It may be that you can pull all or almost all of what the container is going to leach out in a couple of treatments.

[SushiGirl]

Not necessarily phosphates, but even food grade containers can leach stuff. We bought several blue 7 gallon water containers at Wal-Mart to use for buying LFS water before we got our RO/DI unit up & running. Food grade, BPA-free, yadda yadda yadda. We started using 2 of them to hold the RO/DI water from our 35 gpd RO/DI for water change mixing. Sometimes it would sit for a week or 2 in the containers.

He tested the TDS of the water from these containers (thinking he was testing whether to change the RO/DI filters yet) and got something like 27 TDS on the water. He then tested directly from the RO/DI unit and got 0. Then he put water in one at 0 TDS, tested it 24 hours later and it was 17 TDS. Now we just use them to immediately lug the water from the unit to the water change tub (made possible by a new 150 gpd RO/DI unit LOL).

Not storing in those containers anymore has solved the minor cyano issue that was starting to show up (which was why he tested TDS in the first place).

Interestingly, the 2 5 gallon clear/white containers we got originally from the fish store always show 0 TDS no matter how long it's stored. We use those to hold top off water.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, the Brute cans are fine. You may need to rinse it out since the ones at the store get birds crapping in them, etc. ..Warm soapy water followed by lots of rinse water is a good bet.

Also, don't let those numbers worry you much. Too much fooling around with a test kit (which may or may not be accurately measuring phosphate) will generate all kinds of unnecessary anxiety. 0.05 ppm in water change or top off water is very, very small in relation to the amount added each day in foods, and really isn't worth worrying about. It is akin to worrying about weight gain from eating a breath mint on the way out of a restaurant where you had a 32 ounce prime rib and creme brule for dessert.

FWIW, I use 2 x 44 gallon Brute cans to store ro/di, 3 for limewater, 2 for salt water, 3 as refugia, and 2 as sumps for my 120 gallon display.

[tbo]

The US Plastics containers look great and probably work great for longer term storage, but what is the consensus as to the best containers for shorter term storage (1 week or less) and mixing? I am just now thinking about buying 2 44g gray Brutes and am wondering I should go a different direction. I need to be able to fill one with RODI water overnight, mix it the next day and do a water change on day 2 or 3 (the second one is for removing water from the tank during a water change). I need the ability to move 25-30 gallons of water to my tank, so something with wheels would be nice.

Does anyone know the difference between the new Brute 44 gallon grey containers (which are shaped a little different) and the old ones? The new ones still say they are NSF certified but look a little more shiny and perhaps thinner plastic. Aesthetically, they have remolded the inside and have little ears by the handles for hooking on garbage bags or something. The old ones are more of a dull grey (less shiny) and are completely rounded out inside (no remolding) and have standard handles (no ears). I wonder if the new ones are better or worse for the problems reefers are complaining about?

[ryancw01]

Not all of the Brute containers are food safe. The grey and white are food safe and there is one more color they have that are food safe. I just recently switched after a bunch of research online.

[aandfsoccr04]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2087262

HTH

[muttley000]

I cleaned mine by scrubbing them with a paste of baking soda.

[billwill]

Listen to Randy. I've been storing RO water in a 40G Brute and mixing in a 20G Brute for 7 years. I saw the hype a few months back on same subject, so I went out and measured levels in my containers. Measured nothing.

[Eel Freak]

I have two 32g 2632 grey model Brutes as my sump for my 350g system (125 fuge). I cannot grow pods. I cannot shake the cyano or brown algae no matter how much caulerpa and chaeto grows in my fuge. I cannot grow SPS. And my phosphates (even when feeding only a sheet of Nori or two a day and no frozen) continually test through-the-roof.

This tends to coincide with the thread by Eric Borneman. I'm suspect of the Brutes leaching...

[tbo]

So what polyethylene or other alternative tanks are people using? Are there any with wheels like the Brutes? Glass does not seem feasible for people who need to change large amounts of water.

[Plato]

I have two poly tanks http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...1951_200331951, and one two hundred gallon tank just like the one in the link. Had them over ten years.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Originally Posted by Eel Freak

I have two 32g 2632 grey model Brutes as my sump for my 350g system (125 fuge). I cannot grow pods. I cannot shake the cyano or brown algae no matter how much caulerpa and chaeto grows in my fuge. I cannot grow SPS. And my phosphates (even when feeding only a sheet of Nori or two a day and no frozen) continually test through-the-roof.

This tends to coincide with the thread by Eric Borneman. I'm suspect of the Brutes leaching...

FWIW, I don't believe Eric's saga is significant t ordinary reefers, but if you do not have adequate control of phosphate from whatever source, you may have these troubles. Why not simply lower it with GFO?

[Eel Freak]

Well, I tested mine today... The RO water straight out of it is 0ppm Phosphate and TDS. RO water that has been in the Brute for several days tests out at 1.0ppm and a TDS of 830ppm...

[tbo]

I am very confused. Half the people say no problem and half say big problem? Which is it? Is it a particular "vintage" of Brute that was manufactured with a problem or is it just that the people who say they have not had any problems have not really ever checked? (Kind of like a potentially sick person saying they have never had any health issues only because they never went to the doctor to tell them there is a problem.)

I also still do not understand how the people with the poly tanks move the water around? They do not appear to have wheels, so how do you avoid the Brute to transport the water into the tank?

[billwill]

Originally Posted by tbo

I also still do not understand how the people with the poly tanks move the water around? They do not appear to have wheels, so how do you avoid the Brute to transport the water into the tank?

I've tested and have zero phosphates. Randy is a freakin chemist and runs the chemistry forum, so I pretty much trust what he has to say. Water gets moved by pumps, not by castors. You definitely don't want to be moving anything larger than a 5gal bucket with anything other than a pump and tubing.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There are multiple issues that people are discussing, and they are unrelated to each other.

Bear in mind that very few people are complaining of actual problems caused by the Brutes. Most are complaining of test results they are getting, not problems in their tank.

Those who are complaining of tank problems have no evidence that the Brute is an issue. Some above complain about algae and pods and cyano, etc. Well, that happens in a ton of tanks without Brutes. There are literally thousands of threads about people with these problems and no Brute cans. There is just no evidence that the cans are a problem from this perspective.
So to the testing issues. A clean Brute can is not going to raise the TDS to 830 ppm TDS by leaching salts from the plastic. But a can with even a trace of salt dust, spray, or a bit of leftover salt mix will do so. Even if it looks dry, there can be plenty of dried salt to push the TDS up substantially. People find the same in any types of container. It is not easy to get a container clean enough to keep the water at 0-1 ppm TDS, and if open to the air, it will rise over time if anywhere near salt dust or salt spray, etc.

As to the phosphate, people really seem to get crazy about tiny traces of phosphate. Yes, people get values with Hanna checkers of maybe 10-20 ppb. Even if real, these are not significant. One feeding with fish food adds hundreds of times more phosphate than people are adding using the water from their Brute cans for top off. No, the 1 ppm phosphate reported above is not normal, and is not from the can itself. Many people have studied this and do not get those levels. I expect that can was contaminated with something (hence the high TDS as well). Perhaps it had bird poop in it from the store, and never was rinsed well enough.

Finally, Eric’s saga. Eric did an experiment with some delicate creatures and when they died he blamed the can with zero knowledge of the chemicals put into polyethylene cans and no actual evidence it was the can. He mentioned plasticizers, for example, when they are never used in polyethylene. Just a lot of uninformed scare mongering on his part and lots of the folks in his thread that know even less about plastics. Could it have been the can? Possibly. Could it have been something in the plastic? Possibly. Could it have been bird poop? Possibly. He doesn’t even say whether he cleaned the can prior to use.

While I frankly do not care if people like or don’t like Brute cans, and use them or don’t use them, folks should be realistic about their use. Of course rinse them before use. If they look dirty, clean them well. That said, many, many folks use them and do not have apparent issues. I use 12 of them, and the ones serving as my refugia are loaded with life, pods, sponges, coralline algae, macroalgae, etc. Could they be less than optimal and I just got lucky? Possibly. But there are many cases of folks using them, and that isn’t really balanced by a few (very few) claims of actual problems and a larger number of test results (like phosphate) that worry folks but realistically are not any sort of problem.

[zigzag1]

Well said, Randy. Thanks!

I also have zero problems with these that I have been using for many years, fwiw.

[mad city fish]

Love the breath mint analogy, Randy. Very true. I've spent about 3 hours on line last night and this morning decided whether or not to go out and buy Brute cans todays, and now I have decided I will indeed!

[eric w]

Hi all,

I was going through this older post and have a question for Randy...I tested my fresh salt mix tank....and i got a 0.05ppm phosphate with a Hana....it is made of medium density polyethylene white plastic....I saw where you said that 0.05ppm is nothing....I started to run gfo in my tank a couple months ago and still get 0.03-0.05ppm in my DT....should i just bump up my gfo to rid my DT or chase it with new holding tanks? Thanks

[sirreal63]

Randy is on hiatus, probably sitting on a beach with his toes in the sand. . Now on to reality, .03 to .05 is right where you want the po4 to be, going any lower may starve the corals.

[eric w]

Thanks

[cichlidsrcool]

used storage tote for RO/Di and had same problem with Phosphates

[SloppyWhenWet]

Everything changes from time to time. If I am trying to make ultra pure water, I don't want any leech. Different strokes for different folks.