CHEMICLEAN WARNING

[shred5]

Chemiclean is erythromycin, roughly the same as Maracyn, and the stuff your doctor prescribes to you for strep.
While I don’t know the effects of getting it in your eyes, I do know there are all sorts of bacteria that live in skimmate, plus I know that palytoxin is very real.
You can draw a line from unhappy tank from an antibiotic to unhappy palys to palytoxin to your eyes, but I wouldn’t consider that to be the fault of the Chemiclean.
Not saying you aren’t going through something I’d just as soon never experience, but I think the warning may not be centered on the right issue.

According to Boyd Enterprises it is not Erythromycin. They have stated it many times. Some red slime removers are erythromycin though.

 

[RVA REEF]

the only way to know for sure is to mix some fresh salt water with some chemi clean and rub those eyes, who is down?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It is not Erythromycin. They have stated it many times. Some red slime removers are erythromycin though.

Not true.

They claim it is "not erythromycin succinate". Very odd claim, but I believe it.

But they are tricky and misleading.

A court forced the issue. It is erythromycin, albeit a different salt form (not the succinate).

Chemi-clean

Having struggled with stubborn red Cyno for a few months I decided to give Chemiclean a go. I've followed the instructions to the letter regarding turning equipment off and performing a large water change, however I still can't run the skimmer 3 days later due to the amount of foam being...

www.ultimatereef.net

from Claude of Fauna Marin:

"We had in germany a big scandal due to this and the product was analyzed by the veterany office of Hannover
and they showed that this product is erythromycine sulfate .. this is a antibiotics whic normaly only a doctor can give up
due to the usage in this case and this ammounts the possibilitly of unwanted resistance is very big "

 

[Blenniesarebest]

and to think we subject fish to this stuff...

seriously thats scary though... glad you are okay now.

I knew chemiclean was no good it may work but its to potent in my opinion its to unpredictable as well a little off the dose crashes your tank hard which is why i will never use it i would rather break it down and rebuild instead of using chemiclean

 

[jccaclimber]

Thanks for the reply. Given the doctors went from the information I gave them witch was chemiclean why was there so much importance with flushing my eye and taking 5+ ph samples of my eyes? Was this treated the same as a general negative chemical reaction? I have heard of Palythoa toxin before but about 2years into the hobby and by then I have been cutting/ fragging zoas inside and outside the water and even destroying army of green evasive Palythoa with tweezers every month or two for a year! I’m not trying to make a mountain out o a mole hill but if it was not chemiclean have I just been lucky and dogged a bullet?

Quite possible that you’ve been dodging a bullet the entire time, yes. Most of the people I knew dodged the palytoxin bullet for a long time, >10 years even, before it got them doing the same thing they had always done. A fish store I used to go to in Dallas was in business for (guessing) a decade or two before the first time they sent an employee to the hospital with a palytoxin issue, and it wasn't because they changed how they handle things. It just took a while for their number to come up.

The problem for the ophthalmologist is that they probably have not heard of Palytoxin, it’s simply not a common issue. You rightly presented a list of possible chemicals, but they assumed a different exposure level, and with no other information on hand they reached the most likely cause and treated the observed symptoms. Even with the with the wrong cause, their solution may well be correct.

To (attempt to) put it in welding terms, this is like walking by a piece of 1/4" thick steel that was welded two days ago, left on a bench to cool, and blaming a new burn from touching it today. Tell the doc that you touched some recently welded parts, show them your burn and chart of weld temperatures, and they'll reach a conclusion based on the evidence they have. Of course if you don't mention that you got a drop of concentrated bergamot oil on your skin in that spot recently they'll have no way to know that and really the blister is photodermatitis.

 

[JeremyKnight]

I know this is an old thread but did anyone notice the msds sheet posted was for a cleaning product and not Boyd chemiclean?

 

[William Morris]

I had the unfortunate experience of pulling on a wild shoot in my garden some years ago.
It didn't come out of the ground and I thought nothing of it.
I touched my eyes at some point afterwards and within 1/2 hr I'm in the emergency room with burning eyeballs.
It took about a week before the swelling and redness went away.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I know this is an old thread but did anyone notice the msds sheet posted was for a cleaning product and not Boyd chemiclean?

I do not recall if I noticed at the time, but thanks for pointing it out.

 

[N.Sreefer]

So dosing a tank full of bacteria with antibiotics are they trying to breed something resistant? Cant see killing your customers being good for business. Sorry to hear about that experience sounds awful I had stripping solution from BRAVO get in my eyes that had a ph of 13, had a morrigan lense in all night flushing the eye. They scratched my cornea with the lense I would suggest getting you eye checked for physical damage as an outpatient it was worth it for me.

 

[shred5]

So dosing a tank full of bacteria with antibiotics are they trying to breed something resistant? Cant see killing your customers being good for business. Sorry to hear about that experience sounds awful I had stripping solution from BRAVO get in my eyes that had a ph of 13, had a morrigan lense in all night flushing the eye. They scratched my cornea with the lense I would suggest getting you eye checked for physical damage as an outpatient it was worth it for me.

Erythromycin kills bacteria so it kills red slime. It also can kill other bacteria in the tank.
This can lead to problems since bacteria consume nutrients in the tank and are part of your biological filter.
In the end if the problem is not solved can lead to bigger issues. A little cyano is natural and is part of biodiversity and peoples quest to have these sterile tanks has led to the dinos being so prevalent in the hobby.

Not true.

They claim it is "not erythromycin succinate". Very odd claim, but I believe it.

But they are tricky and misleading.

A court forced the issue. It is erythromycin, albeit a different salt form (not the succinate).

Chemi-clean

Having struggled with stubborn red Cyno for a few months I decided to give Chemiclean a go. I've followed the instructions to the letter regarding turning equipment off and performing a large water change, however I still can't run the skimmer 3 days later due to the amount of foam being...

www.ultimatereef.net

from Claude of Fauna Marin:

"We had in germany a big scandal due to this and the product was analyzed by the veterany office of Hannover
and they showed that this product is erythromycine sulfate .. this is a antibiotics whic normaly only a doctor can give up
due to the usage in this case and this ammounts the possibilitly of unwanted resistance is very big "

That is interesting because for years I thought it was Erythromycin and was always shot down for saying I thought it was.

 

[N.Sreefer]

Erythromycin kills bacteria so it kills red slime. It also can kill other bacteria in the tank.
This can lead to problems since bacteria consume nutrients in the tank and are part of your biological filter.
In the end if the problem is not solved can lead to bigger issues. A little cyano is natural and is part of biodiversity and peoples quest to have these sterile tanks has led to the dinos being so prevalent in the hobby.


That is interesting because for years I thought it was Erythromycin and was always shot down for saying I thought it was.

I agree completely but I was referring to antibiotic resistance, some of the bacterial load of a reef tank are pathogens that are pretty benign but would cause issues if they gain antibiotic resistance. So dosing a reef tank with antibiotics seems really dangerous to me. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC105988/

 

[Lazys Coral House]

Cyanobacteria is red tide. When it comes in close to land it burns throat and the eyes. It closes down beaches. It is toxic stuff and having it in the tank can be harmful to corals and also bad for those living in the home especially if having respitory issues. it is good you are treating it. Chemiclean works great. If I see even a small amount I treat before it gets out of hand. It was probrably concentrated in the skimmer. That or like others have mentioned there is all kinds of additional bacteria and toxins in our tanks and they are very concentrated in the skimmer waste. Hopefully you recovering okay.

 

[shred5]

Cyanobacteria is red tide. When it comes in close to land it burns throat and the eyes. It closes down beaches. It is toxic stuff and having it in the tank can be harmful to corals and also bad for those living in the home especially if having respitory issues. It was probrably concentrated in the skimmer. That or like others have mentioned there is all kinds of additional bacteria and toxins in our tanks and they are very concentrated in the skimmer waste. Hopefully you recovering okay.

Isn't red tide dinoflagellates.
Cyno grows across substrate.

Edit:
Looked it up it is dinoflagellates and some diatoms.

 

[Lazys Coral House]

Isn't red tide dinoflagellates.
Cyno grows across substrate.

Edit:
Looked it up it is dinoflagellates and some diatoms.

red tide is a generic name for toxic algae and bacteria’s. Sometimes it is a dinoflagellates

 

[shred5]

I agree completely but I was referring to antibiotic resistance, some of the bacterial load of a reef tank are pathogens that are pretty benign but would cause issues if they gain antibiotic resistance. So dosing a reef tank with antibiotics seems really dangerous to me. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC105988/

I agree, I was just stating why it was bad.
People now a days are looking for a easy way out and not handling it naturally. This is why they are out of the hobby so fast. I saw a while back someone talking up Chemiclean and saying how it has worked four times in his reef and I had to laugh.

 

[MnFish1]

I recently treated my 60g tank with the directed dose of chemiclean. I was on day 2 and I was preparing skimmer to catch skim rather then let it overflow like it was for the treatment. For me I can’t help but put my clean hands in the tank more then I should always have and never had a problem at least with myself. It was 9pm I emptied the collection cup full of chemiclean it was pulling out hands in tank and skimate on hands. About 10 pm I was rubbing my eyes and thinking geez my allergies are bad tonight I managed to fall asleep with rather sore eyes and thought nothing of it. 1am I woke up in agony! I’m a boilermaker/ steel maker and i had had my share of welding flashes this was just as bad if not worse! I could not open my eyes at all my wife drove me to the emergency room and told the doc what happened and he checked the chemiclean MSDS and took a ph reading from my eyeballs and it was off the charts so for the next 2 hours I had 6 brutally painful litres of saline injected under my eyelids till my eye ph was under 7.5. I have had some painful injuries, large third degree burns, compound fractures, dislocated joints and I can honestly tell you this was up there! So it is very wise to use gloves and wash hands after using chemicals in a reef tank of which I learned the hard way.

Curious did you have contacts in? If so - this can be a bigger problem. I'm surprised that even in skim mate - that there would be enough to cause an eye problem. Hope you're doing better. Could it be in infection rather than a reaction? I suppose the concentration in skim mate is higher than in the water.

4.2. Most important symptoms and effects, both acute and delayed
Symptoms/Injuries: Causes serious eye irritation. Skin sensitization.
Symptoms/Injuries After Inhalation: Dust may be harmful or cause irritation.
Symptoms/Injuries After Skin Contact: May cause an allergic skin reaction.
Symptoms/Injuries After Eye Contact: Contact causes severe irritation with redness and swelling of the conjunctiva. Symptoms/Injuries After Ingestion: Ingestion may cause adverse effects.

 

[WVNed]

You get a toxic soup of chemical and mechanical irritants in your eyes. Blame one thing?

 

[WVNed]

If I got this in my eyes I am pretty sure they would not be happy and there is no Chemiclean in it.

I wouldnt even want it in my shoe.

 

[reeferKen]

I sure would like to know what jccaclimber does for a living. Wow..... super intelligent person. Thumbs up if we had the icon

 

[Courtney Aldrich]

Very interesting thread. Cyanobacteria are prolific producers of all kinds of small-molecule toxins and dinoflaggelates produce a huge number of fascinating toxins besides palytoxin, so one should be careful when trying to kill microorganisms with antimicrobial agents since this may lead to release to toxins.