Tech-M's Magic Bryopsis killing ingredient: Lithium

metrokat · Oct 4, 2016

stevo01 said:
Did you have algae issues?

Off and on. The system has ebbs and flows.

tjnorthdakota · Oct 4, 2016

Hopefully somebody can answer this, would it be possible to remove the magnesium from tech-m so that possibly more of the "secret ingredient" could be added to the tank at a time, limiting factor is to high magnesium level in the tank. I know sodium hydroxide will precipitate out the magnesium chrystals. Has anyone ever tried this?

stevo01 · Oct 4, 2016

Well, it's been suggested that the secret ingredient is missing from the current tech m profile. If that's the case there would be no reason to remove the Mg.

mcarroll · Oct 4, 2016

bblumberg said:
LiCl is used to precipitate DNA and RNA after the cells have been lysed.

Interesting. How do they do the lysing?

Orcus Varuna · Oct 4, 2016

Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and/or sodium dodecyl sulfate is the most common lysing solution used for DNA extraction. Probably should also add spinning the cells really really fast lol

bblumberg · Oct 4, 2016

mcarroll said:
Interesting. How do they do the lysing?

Most commonly by first digesting the cell wall with carbohydrases and then lysing the cells with detergent. Or you could break the cell walls mechanically by grinding, or sonicating. You can precipitate RNA selectively by adding the right amount of LiCl, or precipitate both DNA and RNA with LiCl (or most any other type of monovalent cation) and alcohol.

Bruce

mcarroll · Oct 5, 2016

Very interesting!

JimWelsh · Oct 6, 2016

Bryopsis arrived today. Thanks, @stevo01 ! My first job is to not kill it. No, I'm not kidding. I tend to kill my first "starter culture" of just about everything. I even managed to kill my first rotifer culture! Once I have it nicely established, then the experimentation will begin. I'll keep you all posted.

stevo01 · Oct 7, 2016

JimWelsh said:
Bryopsis arrived today. Thanks, @stevo01 ! My first job is to not kill it. No, I'm not kidding. I tend to kill my first "starter culture" of just about everything. I even managed to kill my first rotifer culture! Once I have it nicely established, then the experimentation will begin. I'll keep you all posted.

Good luck Jim!

revhtree · Oct 7, 2016

JimWelsh said:
Bryopsis arrived today. Thanks, @stevo01 ! My first job is to not kill it. No, I'm not kidding. I tend to kill my first "starter culture" of just about everything. I even managed to kill my first rotifer culture! Once I have it nicely established, then the experimentation will begin. I'll keep you all posted.

Cool!

Orcus Varuna · Oct 7, 2016

bblumberg said:
Most commonly by first digesting the cell wall with carbohydrases and then lysing the cells with detergent. Or you could break the cell walls mechanically by grinding, or sonicating. You can precipitate RNA selectively by adding the right amount of LiCl, or precipitate both DNA and RNA with LiCl (or most any other type of monovalent cation) and alcohol.

Bruce

Thank you for the detailed explanation!

bblumberg · Oct 8, 2016

Orcus Varuna said:
Thank you for the detailed explanation!

You are welcome.

stevo01 · Oct 8, 2016

While Bry grows out for Jim I've began Continuum treatment. Starting Mg is 1575ppm, I dosed 80ml for a 100ppm increase. Keeping fingers crossed.

reeferfoxx · Oct 9, 2016

stevo01 said:
While Bry grows out for Jim I've began Continuum treatment. Starting Mg is 1575ppm, I dosed 80ml for a 100ppm increase. Keeping fingers crossed.

Tech M round two?

stevo01 · Oct 9, 2016

reeferfoxx said:
Tech M round two?

Let's assume the current Kents recipe does not contain LiCl. Let's also assume LiCl is the working compound element that destroys Bryopsis cell walls. The Mg level is a relation to the ammount of the secret ingredient present, therefore the same levels would need to be used in this treatment. I'm starting off with my Mg at 1575ppm. I'm confident if I raise to 2075ppm it will be equal to starting at 1375 and raising to 1875. It's been claimed that 5 days of dosing Continuum will cause death to the Bry, and maintaining levels for 3 weeks will ensure no return.

stevo01 · Oct 9, 2016

Dose 3 is tonight and should bring my Mg to 1875ppm.

stevo01 · Oct 9, 2016

For the visual record. This is what is looks like today.

revhtree · Oct 10, 2016

Any news yet?

stevo01 · Oct 10, 2016

revhtree said:
Any news yet?

Its going to take Jim a little while to grow out the specimen I sent him. In my own LICl experiment i think its too soon to tell. Ill continue to update as i move forward. Im going to test PH when i get home. I think if PH is at 9 that the Bryopsis will start breaking down or at least slow down the growth. Whats the safest level I can bring PH to without causing major issues? Thanks.

JimWelsh · Oct 14, 2016

Good news is that not only have I not killed it, but it appears to be quite happy and growing! Now, I just need to get a couple of other small rocks populated with it, so I can do an experiment using a couple of different Li levels, while also maintaining a control. Stay tuned.....