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Glutaraldehyde!

just mixed up my first bottle, did it outside with gloves and 20ml syringe, as soon as the lid comes off its pretty obvious how fierce it is.
Warned my housemate it would be in the shed, was a little concerned that his reply was 'if i put it in someones tea will it kill them?! ' think ill pass on tea when he offers now :lol:
 
Hey guys I have used regular tap water, water that has been mechanical+activated carbon+UV filtered and boiled water as well as deionised, RO and Millipore water to dilute Glut for myself as well as other people who wanted it and as far as I can tell it has not really made any noticeable difference to the stability or performance of the Glut.

Plantbrain (other peeps also read this) : I remember you mentioning you had some involvement in AquaEssentials liquid carbon so Im hoping you could shed some light on something I came across.
Im sure you guys know about the debate on whether Excel is just Glut or indeed a "cyclic polymer of glutaraldehyde and XYZ". I read somewhere that BOILING Glut in an aqueous solution results in LINEAR polymers of Glutaraldehyde.
Is this true ? I have boiled my Glut solutions a few times before using and while it hasnt made the Glut worse, I cant tell if it has made any difference in stability (in the tank as well as in the bottle) or if it made it any more effective in terms of plant growth, ease of uptake, etc.
If possible I would like to hear your thoughts on this
 
Deionised water is freely available in supermarkets so I'd use that if I couldn't already get distilled water for free. Given the potential hazards I'm not sure I'd be happy boiling even a dilute solution of Glutaraldehyde but I'd be interested in reading the data! :lol:
 
I did all that when I used to work in a lab and had access to fume hood. Had to go to the chem department to get the glassware and stuff and had to tell them I was preparing a reagent for an urgent experiment 😛
I also once boiled it at home in the microwave in a covered glass baking dish 😳
But I made sure I did it at night when everyone was asleep and allowed it to cool down and stuff so that the fumes were minimum.
I didnt boil it on the stove as I didnt know if it would react with the metal/teflon in the cooking pots
 
easerthegeezer said:
just mixed up my first bottle, did it outside with gloves and 20ml syringe, as soon as the lid comes off its pretty obvious how fierce it is.
Warned my housemate it would be in the shed, was a little concerned that his reply was 'if i put it in someones tea will it kill them?! ' think ill pass on tea when he offers now :lol:
Click to expand...

How's the home brew going?
 
Anybody seen any adverse effects with this? I'm not so sure it's as strong or the same as Excel. The reasons being that, before mixing my own, I was using Excel in a tank to keep a small amount of BBA off the hardscape. I've been using my own mix for 2 months and dosing the same as excel. I now have BBA on hardscape and plants despite upping the dose. I noticed that when spot dosing excel on BBA it turns, the BBA a rusty colour very quickly. My own mix doesn't do that. (Mix is 30ml Glut with 970ml deionised water, was doing 1ml per 50l daily, now dosing 3ml)
 
hey, been using this for months now, no issues and same results as with excel/easycarbo etc. Also works fine spot dosing for me.
Id suggest upping the dose, 3ml in a 150ltr tank isnt much, i run 20ml daily in 300ltr which ive cut down from 30ml, so 5ml per 50ltr.
 
easerthegeezer said:
hey, been using this for months now, no issues and same results as with excel/easycarbo etc. Also works fine spot dosing for me.
Id suggest upping the dose, 3ml in a 150ltr tank isnt much, i run 20ml daily in 300ltr which ive cut down from 30ml, so 5ml per 50ltr.
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I'm dosing 3ml daily in a 50l tank Iain. Does your BBA change colour when you spot dose?
 
hey dave, yeah... i can only think either you arent dosing enough, your mix is wrong or the glut you bought is weaker than the one discussed here. If its only 20% glut you would need to adjust your mix accordingly. i use the bonniemans with the same recipe you state.
 
easerthegeezer said:
hey dave, yeah... i can only think either you arent dosing enough, your mix is wrong or the glut you bought is weaker than the one discussed here. If its only 20% glut you would need to adjust your mix accordingly. i use the bonniemans with the same recipe you state.
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Got mine from bonnymans too from the link here. Will try upping the dose further. Thanks for the response:thumbup:
 
Using 50% bonniemans. When I spot dose it turns the algae red just like the excel. I'm only dosing 4ml in 137 ltr but my co2 is kept quite high to start with. Using it more has an anti algaecide than a source of carbon. I notice when I stopped using it for a while to see how I got on I would get a film of algae on the glass. When I started using it again no film.
 
Quick update. Mixed up another batch yesterday, giving the glut a good shake before mixing. Spot dosed last night and BBA is red this morning. I think I'm back in business:thumbup:
 
Considering doing this, partly for spot treatment of plant leaves where there's algae, but also to supplement my nano tank. Are people still happy with the results?

Questions I've still got:

- Can this be stored in a normal plastic fert bottle, or does it require glassware? Presuming fert is fine since effectively it ends up the same as Excel EC?
- What's the adverse effect like on a tank if dosing is ceased for 2-3 days (i.e. I go away)?
- Where can I find out which plants are able to utilise liquid carbon and which aren't?

Cheers!
 
Any decent plastic bottle will do, im still happy with using this as an alternative however i have noticed side effects in fauna if you overdose. It doesnt seem to have the lee way that excel etc does. There is no reason for its effects to be worse but when i up my dosing i get some fish go crazy around the tank, jumping and then float around paralyzed, 15 mins later they will be fine, this doesnt occur when i cut back. Because of this ive found that 15ml in 300ltrs is about the max for me. Most plants are happy with LC but some report vals and liver/bladderworts melting, others will use LC with riccia and no issue... i would guess that the dosing amount is likely the decider.
I think i will try to avoid LC in future though, ill use to spot dose algae but not daily dosing... but thats just me. I also believe it has an impact on shrimp breeding success and how shy they are.
 
I just keep mine in a plastic ex mineral water bottle. I don't think food grade plastic should cause any problems.
im still happy with using this as an alternative however i have noticed side effects in fauna if you overdose. It doesnt seem to have the lee way that excel etc does. There is no reason for its effects to be worse but when i up my dosing i get some fish go crazy around the tank, jumping and then float around paralyzed, 15 mins later they will be fine, this doesnt occur when i cut back. Because of this ive found that 15ml in 300ltrs is about the max for me. Most plants are happy with LC but some report vals and liver/bladderworts melting, others will use LC with riccia and no issue... i would guess that the dosing amount is likely the decider.
I think i will try to avoid LC in future though, ill use to spot dose algae but not daily dosing... but thats just me. I also believe it has an impact on shrimp breeding success and how shy they are.
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Very interesting comments geezer, anybody else experienced problems with shrimp? I dose 4ml daily in my 137ltr tank and 8ml on water change day. I noticed on WC day that my kribs tend to stripe up and the female hangs about sort of resting on the bottom. I had until now put this down to the male getting a bit frisky on wc day and hassling her. He does chase her about a lot. My other issue which I was just about to post about in the shrimp section, so you've saved me a jop there 😉 I have been building up a RCS colony in a 5gall tank. Since getting the 10 original stock I would say I now have 30-40 shrimp at all sizes and levels of maturity. One thing I have noticed over that last 4 week or so is that I can't seem to find any new born shrimp. I used to have a constant supply of new born but since adding half mil of DIY EC daily I can't see any with the magnifying glass. The smallest of my shrimp are about 5/6mm in length. The very small new born ones would accumulate on one rock usually but nothing for over a month. My post was going to be do older shrimp eat the younger ones when there is an abundance but this sheds new light. Plenty of berried up females just goes no further.
I think I'll stop dosing the shrimp tank and post up the results after a month or so.
 
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