Vitachem Fresh v Marine

[farfromsea]

Hi all

I bought vitachem fresh for my FW tank. Is there any reason to not give it to my saltwater fish? The Vitachem Fresh is cheaper than Vitachem Marine...

 

[JohnL]

@leebca thoughts?

 

[farfromsea]

My only thought is maybe the pH of the fluid is suboptimal?

 

[wvned]

Fresh

Marine

They appear to be the same stuff to me.

 

[griss]

Algaefix is the same. Several years back, I found a steal in it on evilbay. I ordered but didn’t realize it was FW Algaefix. Emailed API and was told it’s the same stuff. So, why is the marine version more expensive????

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

The word "MARINE"!

 

[leebca]

The label comparisons show they are the same. But Boyd does have 'proprietary' differences in the two Vita-Chem products. The pH of freshwater aquaria is slightly lower than saltwater aquaria. I don't know if there is a pH difference in the products.

The Marine product includes the targeting of filter feeders. But for fish, I can see no reason not to use the Freshwater product. Noteworthy too is a price difference. The 16 ounce bottles on Amazon shows that the Freshwater Vita-Chem is slightly more expensive.

 

[farfromsea]

Hm I have some encrusting sponge in the tank that is either being chomped by someone or wasting away due to my reefkeeping so I'm unsure if the FW formula would harm the sponge or if I'm overthinking. Super appreciate the ingredient picture I searched for a while and couldn't find it! And like you guys said I guess the proprietary part is what would really answer my question

 

[leebca]

unsure if the FW formula would harm the sponge

I don't think there would be harm. It would be more like the FW formula would not benefit the sponge.

 

[farfromsea]

I don't think there would be harm. It would be more like the FW formula would not benefit the sponge.

Thanks for the reassurance I started with selecon yesterday so I'll add the vitachem too and see how it goes! I'm curious if the vitachem will help the coral at all at the micronutrient level

 

[leebca]

Be sure to Download then read, the Fish Nutrition document.

 

[farfromsea]

Be sure to Download then read, the Fish Nutrition document.

Thank you I had downloaded it earlier this month. Gave it a re-read and the 1x weekly selecon and 1x weekly vitachem supplement was a good reminder!

I shouldn't defrost the food, add vitachem (or selecon), and re-freeze...correct? Feel like that would break the molecules. That wasn't clear to me in the pdf.

 

[leebca]

You are correct. Re-freezing just breaks down more cells and releases their content. The results is a thawed bit of food needing filtering.

I'll try to make it more clear on my next revision. Thanks for reading it and thanks for your question.

 

[farfromsea]

You are correct. Re-freezing just breaks down more cells and releases their content. The results is a thawed bit of food needing filtering.

I'll try to make it more clear on my next revision. Thanks for reading it and thanks for your question.

Thank you for the great resource!