Chemiclean Poll, take 2

[twilliard]

CO2 is aired off on both beakers naturally. The difference is the rapid change in CO2 levels caused by adding Chemiclean (again, assuming it doesn't contain any pH modifiers). If left for a long enough period of time they should both go back to being the same color over time. Providing aeration will only speed up that occurrence.

I will post up a picture of the results of this test.
I am only doing this to help the education of Co2 and O2 relation.
..Picture coming...

 

[twilliard]

Here it is 24 hours of aeration

 

[Brew12]

Here it is 24 hours of aeration

Ok, you win. That was not what I expected. This means that whatever other ingredients Chemiclean uses, it also has an ingredient that will strongly impact pH when highly concentrated or not buffered. Very interesting! I really appreciate you taking the time to do this!

 

[mcarroll]

This got me thinking...

I don't know if I'm the first one to speculate on this, but is there a chance Chemiclean is something like Leslie's Power Powder Plus Flagship Pool Shock and Super-Chlorinator, Multipack...?

I know jack about pool maintenance, but this stuff does what chemiclean does and even in its native use it's apparently buffered....buffering it a bit more toward our tanks' pH seems very possible.

It's apparently a sterilizer and an oxidizer, unless it's buffered with a non-chlorine-based acid, then it's just an oxidizer. (If I read correctly.)

Wikipedia's article on Salt water chlorination pool maintenance has some interesting details. (Not related to seawater like in our tanks....just interesting info about these chemicals.)

 

[Brew12]

This got me thinking...

I don't know if I'm the first one to speculate on this, but is there a chance Chemiclean is something like Leslie's Power Powder Plus Flagship Pool Shock and Super-Chlorinator, Multipack...?

I know jack about pool maintenance, but this stuff does what chemiclean does and even in its native use it's apparently buffered....buffering it a bit more toward our tanks' pH seems very possible.

It's apparently a sterilizer and an oxidizer, unless it's buffered with a non-chlorine-based acid, then it's just an oxidizer. (If I read correctly.)

Wikipedia's article on Salt water chlorination pool maintenance has some interesting details. (Not related to seawater like in our tanks....just interesting info about these chemicals.)

I think it is fairly well established that it is an antibiotic and a flocculent. I'm not sure the rest of it is public knowledge. I have a business associate in Germany trying to get me the lab results that resulted in it's being banned in Germany but he isn't have much luck yet. He is speculating that in agreeing to not sell the product in Germany they would not release the actual ingredients found by testing. Still pursuing it.

 

[mcarroll]

I so wish I could remember the sources that I thought had confirmed it not being an antibiotic back in the 2000's. Old brain! :mad: Supposedly there was an older formula that was erythromycin. But that was far too long ago to remember more than I just typed.

Can you say in a nutshell how has it been established that it's indeed an antibiotic vs oxidizer or oxidizer+sterilizer? Seems the end result would be close to the same for end-users like us.

I have also seen folks here on R2R dose chlorine bleach into their tanks, which is similar in concept.

I think I agree with your business associate. The Germany thing just sounds like simple market protection....as an incident, I doubt it says much about the contents of Chemiclean except that they are secret and that this fact was "conveniently unacceptable" to their pet industry.

 

[twilliard]

I too remember something along that line.
Wish I had a spectrometer in my lab!

(bleach does work!)

 

[Brew12]

I so wish I could remember the sources that I thought had confirmed it not being an antibiotic back in the 2000's. Old brain! :mad: Supposedly there was an older formula that was erythromycin. But that was far too long ago to remember more than I just typed.

Can you say in a nutshell how has it been established that it's indeed an antibiotic vs oxidizer or oxidizer+sterilizer? Seems the end result would be close to the same for end-users like us.

I have also seen folks here on R2R dose chlorine bleach into their tanks, which is similar in concept.

I think I agree with your business associate. The Germany thing just sounds like simple market protection....as an incident, I doubt it says much about the contents of Chemiclean except that they are secret and that this fact was "conveniently unacceptable" to their pet industry.

I had this in a post in a different thread. It's part of a translation from a German web page.

"The result was as expected:
It may well antibiotics contained in the agent ChemiClean, namely, according to analysis of the laboratory exactly 320 mg / KG . It is a Phys./chem investigation. (LC-MS / MS) test report number: AR-06-JJ-076115-01 and sample number: 703-2006-00076098
start investigation 07/08/2006
end examination 30.08.2006

This antibiotic was found in the laboratory is called erythromycin. This is a very favorable Breibandantibiotikum which is located in the cent range."

This issue that he is having is that when asking the lab for the test results, they will not release the information. I am fairly confident that ChemiClean does contain an antibiotic. Unlike in the US, no antibiotics are allowed to be sold in Europe without a prescription.

My best guess is that it contains an antibiotic, a surfactant, a flocculant, and an oxidizer. It is the combination of these that allow the antibiotic to really knock back the cyno without heavily impacting the nitrifying bacteria.

 

[mcarroll]

Interesting.

I know I would never have used it had I thought there was still antibiotics in the formula.

Unfortunate if that pans out to be true.

 

[mcarroll]

I haven't looked in a long time, but finding an actual contact number for anyone at Boyd's used to be impossible. It would be nice to call them and just ask. I'd hope they'd at least confirm with a yes/no without stating exactly what or how much.