Testing of Chemiclean

[MnFish1]

If you look at the solubility of chemiclean, I think it may be pointing against erythromycin...
I noticed that chemiclean is really water-soluble. So I wanted to see just how soluble.

you can dissolve the entire 10 gallon dose (1 scoop = ~50mg) in 0.10mL of distilled water quickly with no apparent leftovers.
googling says that EM is very low solubility in water like 2mg/mL but very high solubility in acetone, alcohols etc.

top: a 50mg scoop in each tube
center: dissolves totally and quickly in 0.10mL of water (left), faster than in 0.10 mL acetone (right)
bottom: after a few minutes, dissolves totally in 0.10mL of both water and acetone.


If erythromycin is really only soluble at ~2mg/mL, then only 0.2mg should have dissolved - not the full 50mg scoop.

As far as the question of whether the chemiclean powder is mostly ingredient or fillers, the single dose powder itself is ~50mg meant for 10 gallons of water, so it's only ~1.3mg/L of total powder. Most cyano toxicity studies with erythromycin put the values for acute effects on cyano at low single digits ppm. Not too much room for fillers there.

@osprey101 had some earlier suggestions for alternate antibiotics to consider

You always use indirect methods - how about direct methods - is it or is it not?

EDIT - I misread your statement - I thought you said something different. Agree - the data you present suggest that erythromycin is not present. I would point out - that there is a huge degradation problem with erythromycin in an acidic environment - whereas degradation in a basic environment is less. Thus, Less Erythromycin would be needed in a basic solution (which is where most reef tanks exist?)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The use of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the detection of drug intoxication - PubMed

The use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as a method for drug analysis has the advantages of reduced pre-analytical preparation time and the potential to detect and quantitate drug conjugates and metabolites simultaneously. NMR was investigated as a method to screen for organic...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I do not think NMR of a mixture of unknown materials will be very effective. You will see many peaks and won't know which ones go with which molecules.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You always use indirect methods - how about direct methods - is it or is it not

HPLC is the standard direct method for EM, but few folks have one at home. lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You like to use a lot of (potential - but not likely) - cause and effect issues. Someone - pay to analyze the compound - otherwise this is turning into another vibrant theme - with multiple possibilities. OR - the OP should call the company - and post the response. So - Lets assume its erythromycin xxxxxxxxx (salt) who cares. If it works in their tank who cares what is the agenda. I'm sorry just don't get it. But Before posting this experiment - I would have contacted the company, explained what you were going to do - and asked them. If its erythromycin, and erythromycin does not affect the tank - who cares. This is another tempest in a teapot. IMHO

If you don't care whether companies mislead reefers about their product, fine. No one is forcing you to care.

I care. I can't really imagine much worse than a hobby company than lying about a product to sell more.

 

[MnFish1]

I do not think NMR of a mixture of unknown materials will be very effective. You will see many peaks and won't know which ones go with which molecules.

however can you stilll not match the purported peaks - yes there sill be signal

 

[MnFish1]

I do not think NMR of a mixture of unknown materials will be very effective. You will see many peaks and won't know which ones go with which molecules.

Frankly I think this is one of a number of posts - I done see where the company said 'there is no erythromycin' - and I have used the product with success - so - frankly - as long as it doesn't damage a biologic filter - who cares. These - lets prove the big manufacturers wrong have gotten old - except I personally do not like adding antibiotic

 

[MnFish1]

If you don't care whether companies mislead reefers about their product, fine. No one is forcing you to care.

I care. I can't really imagine much worse than a hobby company than lying about a product to sell more.

You are stating a much more strong opinion than I did, 1., Should a product work? Yes, 2. Should the product contain a non toxic ingredient? Yes, However this study - purports with extremely low-level methodology - to 'prove' xxx. IMHO - its not correct, Please stop rephrasing what I've said

 

[Northern Flicker]

Frankly I think this is one of a number of posts - I done see where the company said 'there is no erythromycin' - and I have used the product with success - so - frankly - as long as it doesn't damage a biologic filter - who cares. These - lets prove the big manufacturers wrong have gotten old - except I personally do not like adding antibiotic

Blink twice if someone is forcing you to read and take part in this thread...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Frankly I think this is one of a number of posts - I done see where the company said 'there is no erythromycin' - and I have used the product with success - so - frankly - as long as it doesn't damage a biologic filter - who cares. These - lets prove the big manufacturers wrong have gotten old - except I personally do not like adding antibiotic

I don't understand you lack of interest in the truth. it's your sort of outlook that inspires so much misleading behavior in the first place. The penalty for being caught is too low.

This company reportedly lost a court case in Germany over this exact issue. It seems quite warranted to determine if we are suffering the same scam in the US.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You are stating a much more strong opinion than I did, 1., Should a product work? Yes, 2. Should the product contain a non toxic ingredient? Yes, However this study - purports with extremely low-level methodology - to 'prove' xxx. IMHO - its not correct, Please stop rephrasing what I've said

That's ridiculous. The software quoted your exact phrase which was:

" If its erythromycin, and erythromycin does not affect the tank - who cares. "

I told you who cares: ME.

You don't care. I don't care that you don't care, and you don't care that I do care.

I think that's all the caring needed for today.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

however can you stilll not match the purported peaks - yes there sill be signal

One may be able to show it isn't present if there is a very strong separate peak from EM that is not present in the product. One cannot show EM is present if there are many peaks from different materials that all overlap, and the EM part of which may be a minor ingredient compared to the excipients (as is the norm for many pharmaceuticals).

NMR is not used to identify pharmaceuticals unless they are fairly pure. HPLC is, since one can separate the ingredients and then identify the individual components by mass spec or other properites.

 

[jda]

I care too. @MnFish1 - your involvement in the whole Vibrant thing started out poorly, continued to be poor and still is poor, that I can tell. This is like opening the same playbook. You can stay out of this one if you don't care or don't intend to help - I will catch you on the next one where you contribution can be good when you care or even care about other people caring. Everybody else should just ignore what is posted. This is all that I am going to add unless some skin is added to the game... and I mean actual skin and not just words.

 

[jda]

The gals at Uni can do HPLC. Is this worth spending money on? If so, I can get this going.

I don't mind spending the time or money, but don't want just a chart that we don't know what to do with. I do have a few kids out of state in College and one at a UC school (ouch!).

 

[MnFish1]

my hyoithethis. it contains an antibiotic,,,,, so what are we pretending, like Columbo - that we're solving a murder mystery? Actua;lly, we're trying to prove that the compound kills cyanobacteria, LOL This back and forth - as if we are bing some kind of detector - seems to be a waste of time. go ahead. - prove its not erythromycin succinate - but rather erythromycin laurel sulfate.

 

[Hypnotize]

Following just for interest.

FYI this isn’t sold in Europe as aswell as Vibrant wasn’t because a company has to comply with many law regarding antibiotics and other pesticides, algaecides etc. so that would make you think that something is in chemiclean.
Does it work? Yes for sure.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This pdf shows the carbon and hydrogen NMR's of one form of erythromycin (A), showing how complicated it is with 37 different carbon peaks and many overlapping hydrogen peaks.

https://magritek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Case-Study-Erythromycin-A-80-MHz.pdf

Further, commercial erythromycin is a mixture of several related compounds that will not have identical peaks:

Erythromycin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Standard-grade erythromycin is primarily composed of four related compounds known as erythromycins A, B, C, and D. Each of these compounds can be present in varying amounts and can differ by lot."

Thus, as I stated above, one might be able to rule out erythromycin presence by NMR (say, by seeing no peak at 2.3 or 3.3 ppm in the H NMR), one will not be able to rule it in unless it is a pure compound (or mix of forms) and we have a matching NMR peak for peak with that same pure compound or mix of forms.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The gals at Uni can do HPLC. Is this worth spending money on? If so, I can get this going.

I don't mind spending the time or money, but don't want just a chart that we don't know what to do with. I do have a few kids out of state in College and one at a UC school (ouch!).

The concern with HPLC is that it is often not a one off run. Conditions either need to be exactly reproduced from a literature paper (that's possible) or the method may need multiple runs under different conditions to determine where it separates from any other compounds that may be present.

 

[Joe462]

Following.... but based on what i'm reading we haven't identified a reliable test method?

 

[MnFish1]

Following just for interest.

FYI this isn’t sold in Europe as aswell as Vibrant wasn’t because a company has to comply with many law regarding antibiotics and other pesticides, algaecides etc. so that would make you think that something is in chemiclean.
Does it work? Yes for sure.

Funny you can buy chemiclean on amazon.de (35 Euros approx)

 

[MnFish1]

I don't understand you lack of interest in the truth. it's your sort of outlook that inspires so much misleading behavior in the first place. The penalty for being caught is too low.

This company reportedly lost a court case in Germany over this exact issue. It seems quite warranted to determine if we are suffering the same scam in the US.

I never said I wasn't interested in the truth, in fact I posted a link to an article that shows a method to identify the presence of erythromycin.

That said, I don't think it's a 'scam' if a company does not identify ingredients that the government does not require them to identify. I agree with you - that just saying it's not erythromycin succinate, although supposedly 'true', may not be the whole truth.

FWIW, Chemiclean is available in the German version of Amazon - priced at about 35 Euros (I had also read about this court case, but can't find any record of it. I believe the comment was that they changed the ingredient(s).

@jda, IMHO, the important question is not 'is it erythromycin', to me the important question is 'is it an antibiotic'. Since many antibiotics kill cyanobacteria, though it may not be erythromycin, it may be let's say tetracycline. And - Again IMHO, of course it contains an antibiotic of some type - since it's killing a bacteria, right?

I think I'm pretty well on the record saying that antibiotics should not be used in a tank, unless a disease is being treated. So - I'm not a big fan of erythromycin or any other antibiotic being used to treat algae, cyanobacteria, etc, cipro for anemones, etc. For a number of reasons.