Old chemicals

1000_smiles · Apr 13, 2017

I was going through my fish stuff and I found some things that are labeled with expiration or best before dates of 03/2015. The ones I am wondering about are Lugol's solution, Pohl's K-Balance, and some test kits. Are they still usable? Do the chemicals break down, or lose potency or efficacy over time? I also have some old amino acids and bacteria that I should probably just throw away, but what is the best way to dispose of this stuff?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Apr 13, 2017

What do you want to use the Lugols for? Some uses might go bad and others not.

The potassium salts in K-balance do not go bad.

With the kits, I'd get new ones and compare the old to the new. If they match closely enough for your purposes, keep the old too.

1000_smiles · Apr 14, 2017

I originally got the Lugol's to use as an antibacterial coral dip. At the time, I had some rampant RTN going on in my tank and suspected a bacterial infection introduced by old and possibly spoiled food. Unfortunately, it ran it's course pretty quickly and pretty much killed all the corals within a couple of days. Since then I have kept the Lugol's on hand to use as a coral dip in case I have any random RTN or STN that I can't attribute to something else.

I have also considered using the Lugol's as an aquarium additive (1 drop/day) simply because some successful aquarists have said that they dose it.

Thanks for the help Randy!