Finally an easy solution to bryopsis!

[Morn]

Just looking through the MSDS data on the Tech-M product I note that the proportions of the constituent parts are:

Magnesium Chloride <50%
Magnesium Sulphate <25%

This leaves a wapping 25% unaccounted for in terms of the quantity's of the other ingredients contained within the product and there is no way of identifying that its actually the magnesium that is doing the trick.

 

[Neptune777]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12053763#post12053763 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Morn
Just looking through the MSDS data on the Tech-M product I note that the proportions of the constituent parts are:

Magnesium Chloride <50%
Magnesium Sulphate <25%

This leaves a wapping 25% unaccounted for in terms of the quantity's of the other ingredients contained within the product and there is no way of identifying that its actually the magnesium that is doing the trick.

Since I tried Mg Chloride and Mg Sulphate and neither of them worked like a magic bullet I would guess that the unknown 25% has something to do with the success folks are having with Tech-M .

 

[Morn]

Has anyone actually asked kent for the stats?

 

[jdieck]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12053782#post12053782 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Neptune777
Since I tried Mg Chloride and Mg Sulphate and neither of them worked like a magic bullet I would guess that the unknown 25% has something to do with the success folks are having with Tech-M .

The other 25% is supposedly water

 

[poopsko24]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12054181#post12054181 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jdieck
The other 25% is supposedly water

R u being serious ?

 

[SimonSKL]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12053763#post12053763 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Morn
Just looking through the MSDS data on the Tech-M product I note that the proportions of the constituent parts are:

Magnesium Chloride <50%
Magnesium Sulphate <25%

This leaves a wapping 25% unaccounted for in terms of the quantity's of the other ingredients contained within the product and there is no way of identifying that its actually the magnesium that is doing the trick.

Please note the "<" sign above. MgCl2 can be any number less than 50 and MgSO4 any number less than 25. Even if the water is 25%, that still leaves a lot of % for other "fillers".

 

[poopsko24]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12055856#post12055856 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SimonSKL
Please note the "<" sign above. MgCl2 can be any number less than 50 and MgSO4 any number less than 25. Even if the water is 25%, that still leaves a lot of % for other "fillers".

i agree

 

[jdieck]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12055728#post12055728 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by poopsko24
R u being serious ?

Yes I am serious.
Heat happens is that the Epsom salt, Magnesium Sulfate is most lprobably in the heptahydrate form while the Magnesium Chloride is the hexahydrate form. In other words for each molecule of Magnesium Sulfate you get 7 molecules of water while for every molecule of magnesium chloride you get 7 molecules of water.
All this is even before they are added to water to make the solution!
In addition to this high content of water at the molecular level and the water added to make the solution, you also have the level of moisture carried in the salt itself so at the end I shoul dhave said thet the balance is water rather than saying 25% is water.
The reason I see they use Less than instead of a fixed % is that it is very difficult to determine the level of moisture and if a portion of the salt comes in the anhydrous form.
At the end, in my opinion, any compound or chemical that is afecting the algae if not the sulfate, magnesium or chloride ions may come as an impurity in the original raw materials, in other words we might never know what it is.

 

[jdieck]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12055856#post12055856 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SimonSKL
Please note the "<" sign above. MgCl2 can be any number less than 50 and MgSO4 any number less than 25. Even if the water is 25%, that still leaves a lot of % for other "fillers".

See my post above.

 

[SimonSKL]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12056199#post12056199 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jdieck
At the end, in my opinion, any compound or chemical that is afecting the algae if not the sulfate, magnesium or chloride ions may come as an impurity in the original raw materials, in other words we might never know what it is.

jdieck, I agree with what you said about the water content in the magnesium salts. It makes sense. I think you pretty much summed up the whole thread with the above comment. I tried magnesium sulfate alone and magnesium sulfate & chloride combo without success. Those unknown ingredients in Tech M are making a difference.

Too bad we will never know what they are. Tech M is never indicated for getting rid of Bryopsis. May be Kent can do some research and ID the active ingredient(s). They may make a bunch of money if they are successful. Just like Pfizer's Viagra. The drug was originally researched for hypertension!

 

[Mikeyjer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11997115#post11997115 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TWallace
That's just pure speculation and guesswork. I never lost any snails or corals during Tech M treatment. I only had some softies and zoanthids lose some color, but they recovered.

IT is speculation as I said "To me, it is copper" BUT IF you look at the contents on the bottle, it does say "Copper" as one of the ingredients. I'm not arguing with you on this, but it was a personal experience and others who had the same thing happen to them. I had a full tank of snails, hermits, and corals. I have seriously lost every last one of my snails and all hermits went into hiding. When my corals started dying off, LPS mainly, that's when I stopped the treatment, all the bryopsis did die off, not saying it doesn't work, but they still came back. It took me soooooooooo many water changes before I was able to keep snails alive in my tank again, it's like it was completely toxic for snails to live in it. Every single snail I have tossed in there would die. After weeks of water changes after water changes, I am finally able to keep snails alive again. It's just something for people to think about before dosing this product. Just sharing my experience!

 

[Mikeyjer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12003282#post12003282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by patwillman
Hi John603
Cycle is an additive for fresh or saltwater that puts beneficial bacteria in your aquarium that reduces amonia and nitrite. It is more than likely what you used when you first set up your aquarium to age the water, I know that is when I first used it, and after so many months, I did not use it any more. But believe me, I keep it on hand now, and have for many months now.

It will work for you as it did for me. It is inexpensive, and works quickly( in just a few days), with just one dose.

After all the advice I received, and all the headaches I had over Green Hair Algae, as I purchased Tangs, a product called "Algae be gone", many water changes etc. This was so simple. I have since told anyone with this problem, and they have been successful too.

I have given this advice before

Ok, after reading this part twice. I DO remember using this stuff years ago when I was having some issue with my tank. I can't remember what it was, but I was ignorant at the time. A total newbie to the hobby. The fish store told me to try this stuff "Cycle" so I did and I do remember that it actually helped my tank. Come to think of it, I think I was having nitrate issue if I remembered right.....I don't know how a bottle on the shelf could keep live bacteria within??? I haven't try the stuffs since, maybe I'll give it a try since the last time I killed off the bryopsis and chaeto, it brought hair algae into my tank. I'll give progress on it.....I try anything once....lol......
Have anyone try AlgaeFix???? It was suggested to me at the local store, the manager handed me a bottle to take home to try since he knows I've been battling bryopsis for so long. Here's what happened when I started dosing. Without knowing that it would kill off chaeto, I place a clump of new chaeto from my other tank into the fuge. Within just days of dosing, bryopsis started dying off. Within two weeks, bryopsis was really down in numbers. Within three weeks hair algae started popping up. After a month is when I realized that the chaeto was dying and when I yanked it out, it smells rotten and was all falling apart. Took out Chaeto, do a lot of water changes. Hair algae level lowered a lot!!! After all that process was being taken care of, I kept dosing this stuff, BUT bryopsis came back again even during dosing time. It's not growing as fast as it normally does, it grows rather slow. I guess it just keeps it at bay.....

 

[Morn]

Ok people,

I have had a conversation with a member of the 'Product Lines Tech Support Dept' at Kent Marine, the email is posted here in its entirety so that it can be reviewed by you all. Let me know if there is any further aspects that you want me to raise with them as my contact is a particularly nice guy.

Cheers

My email:

I have recently read about people successfully treating Bryopsis by raising their magnesium levels using the Tech-M product. People have tried making homemade magnesium supplements which have had little or no affect on the algae, this has led to a general view that it must therefore be one of the other ingredients that actually effects a change.

On MSDS sheet for the product there are the following listings:

Magnesium Chloride <50%
Magnesium Sulphate <25%

This leaves a huge 25% that is unaccounted for and I would like to know what I am adding to my system and in what quantities before I begin this experiment.

Is there any further information that you can give me on the remaining elements and their quantities.

Kind Regards

Reply

Hi,

I sent your email to one our people in the R&D department just to be sure for you. I also asked if he had heard of Tech M treating Bryopsis. His response is below in red. If you have any further questions, please let me know.

The other ingredient would be water. There are no other ingredients in Tech M. We use 94-98% pure grade raw materials in the formula. It’s one of the highest available. The next step up would be reagent grade which would make a 16 oz bottle about $100. The bulk of the contaminants are mainly carbonates plus a small amount of sodium and potassium and various trace metals that are unavoidable. These are very small amounts and are found in much higher concentrations in salt mixes that the amount added with Tech M would be indistinguishable.

I can’t say I have ever heard of Tech M being effective as a hair algae treatment. It would be nice if that were true. I would think it may encourage the growth of more beneficial coralline algae and corals if the magnesium levels were low to begin with which could crowd out the Bryopsis by competing more effectively for nutrients. As to why other homemade supplements aren’t effective it may be that they are using a lower industrial or food grade of Magnesium chloride which are typically only 70-85% pure and contain more impurities.

I also quote a further comment from Kent after I asked him to take a look at this post, he noted "There is defiantly no copper in the product." I am aware that some bottle have been reported to contain copper so i was wondering if people could give me an indication as to whether they all state this or whether it may be one or two bottles.

I hope this helps in clearing things up.

Regards

 

[MrSquid]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12065664#post12065664 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Morn
I also quote a further comment from Kent after I asked him to take a look at this post, he noted "There is defiantly no copper in the product." I am aware that some bottle have been reported to contain copper so i was wondering if people could give me an indication as to whether they all state this or whether it may be one or two bottles.

My bottle (which I just emptied and threw away yesterday) listed copper as an ingredient. The Kentmarine.com website even lists copper as an ingredient:

Contents:
deionized water containing the following elements (as ions): magnesium, chlorine, sulfur, calcium, potassium, bromine, strontium, boron, fluorine, lithium, rubidium, iodine, iron, molybdenum, zinc, nickel, copper, manganese, vanadium, cesium, cobalt, tungsten, selenium, and chromium.

That being said, I've noticed some fading in the color of my bryopsis. Gonna pick up some more and keep treating to see if that fade progresses.

 

[TWallace]

Great post Morn, thanks for looking into that. I'm surprised the people at Kent have never heard of Tech M being used to kill bryopsis. This thread's been around over 10 months.

 

[Mikeyjer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12066012#post12066012 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MrSquid
My bottle (which I just emptied and threw away yesterday) listed copper as an ingredient. The Kentmarine.com website even lists copper as an ingredient:

Contents:
deionized water containing the following elements (as ions): magnesium, chlorine, sulfur, calcium, potassium, bromine, strontium, boron, fluorine, lithium, rubidium, iodine, iron, molybdenum, zinc, nickel, copper, manganese, vanadium, cesium, cobalt, tungsten, selenium, and chromium.

That being said, I've noticed some fading in the color of my bryopsis. Gonna pick up some more and keep treating to see if that fade progresses.

Thank you very much for verifying what I was talking about. It said the same thing on the previous bottle that I threw away. BUT here's what the newer bottle says, they change the wording of it to the following:
Contents
deionized water, magnesium salts, minerals in proper ratios to prevent ionic imbalance.

IF you did do your research on the ingredients on websites before, it does say Copper! When I was dosing this stuff, I asked some older reefers and they told me to be real careful with this stuff cause it can turn for the worse. Not saying it's a bad product, just some caution is needed!!!!

 

[Mikeyjer]

By the way, on their website, it is still listed the same way as the bottle I threw away before. Check it out!

 

[jdieck]

Well, A change in formulation could mean it may no longer work?

j/k Mike I think you are scaring yourself out. Kent used to add their trace elements to many of their products including copper, yes natural sea water include copper as part of it's trace elements same as most if not all of modern salt mixes but the quantities are just that traces in the parts per billion or parts per trillion concentration.

Understanding Seawater:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030620...m/fish2/aqfm/1998/july/features/1/default.asp

From the above article:
<p><b>Metals</b>
The metals, in particular, are strongly ion paired in solution. Copper primarily forms soluble CuCO₃, iron forms soluble Fe(OH)₃ and silicon (not strictly a metal) forms (Si(OH)₄. Some of the other metals that are biologically important (e.g., zinc, molybdenum, manganese, cobalt) form a wide variety of ion pairs with different ions in solution. In some cases, the number of different species that form is extensive. <i>Table IV</i> shows the speciation of copper in seawater at a pH of 8.1.

<table border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="1" width="200" align="left" bgcolor="#FFFFCC">
<tr><td valign="top" colspan="2" align="center">

<font face="Helvetica"><font size="-1" font><b>TABLE IV<br>Speciation of Copper in Seawater</b></font>
</td></tr>
</td></tr>
<tr bgcolor="CCFFFF"><td valign="top"><font size="-1"><b>Copper form</b></font></td><td valign="top" align="center"><font size="-1" font><b>Percentage of total</b></font></td></tr>
<tr align="left">
<tr bgcolor="FFFFCC"> <td valign="top"><font size="-1">CuCO₃</font></td><td valign="top" align="center"><font size="-1">73.8</font></td></tr>
<tr bgcolor="CCFFFF"><td valign="top"><font size="-1">Cu(CO₃)₂^2-</font></td><td valign="top" align="center"><font size="-1">14.2</font></td></tr>
<tr align="left">
<tr bgcolor="FFFFCC"> <td valign="top"><font size="-1">Cu(OH)⁺</font></td><td valign="top" align="center"><font size="-1">4.9</font></td></tr>
<tr bgcolor="CCFFFF"><td valign="top"><font size="-1">Cu²⁺</font></td><td valign="top" align="center"><font size="-1">3.9</font></td></tr>
<tr align="left">
<tr bgcolor="FFFFCC"> <td valign="top"><font size="-1">Cu(OH)₂</font></td><td valign="top" align="center"><font size="-1">2.2</font></td></tr>
<tr bgcolor="CCFFFF"><td valign="top"><font size="-1">CuSO₄</font></td><td valign="top" align="center"><font size="-1">1.0</font></td></tr>
<tr align="left">
<tr bgcolor="FFFFCC"> <td valign="top"><font size="-1">CuHCO₃⁺</font></td><td valign="top" align="center"><font size="-1">0.1</font></td></tr>
</table>
</p>
See also:
What is seawater
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php

 

[Morn]

Again asked this question:

Question

Hi

Just to note that according to the Kent website, Tech-M contains copper is this not the case?
Tech-M

Regards

Reply

The only copper that would be in Tech-M would be VERY trace amounts. The list that is on the website is all the possible contaminants in the raw materials. These would be at a much lower concentration than NSW or salt mixes. The raw materials are 98% pure and all the other minerals listed are the possible contaminants.

I am guessing this clears things up, I wonder if it is prehaps the quality of the Magnesium supplements that affect its success as suggested in my earlier posting.

 

[TWallace]

Mike, I think you're making too big a deal of the copper listed in the ingredients. If there was any significant amount of copper in it, there'd be a lot more people on this thread mentioning dead inverts (not just snails).

I myself only had trouble with snails and Tech M when I boosted the level in my QT very quickly (like several hundred ppm in a few minutes). I forgot that I had a couple of astreas in there and saw them struggling. They were falling off the glass/rocks and were clearly not happy. I tossed them into my refugium of my main system (no acclimation) and they immediately recovered and are doing fine now. The reason I boosted it quickly is that I had just purchased a goniopora with some bryopsis on it and didn't want to add it to my main tank until it had been subjected to Tech M for a week.

At the same time, I had 2 scarlet hermits in the QT and they didn't mind at all the quick change from Tech M. If it was copper that caused the adverse reaction in the snails, it would surely have affected the hermits as well.

I never had anything die after dosing Tech M in my main system, just some softies lose their color temporarily. I kept my main system at around 1650ppm to treat bryopsis for a couple of months, boosted solely with Tech M.