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