DMSO reef safe?

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yes, tox is low. You might smell the dimethylsulfide that some bacteria make from it. It’s one of the main smells of the “ocean”, so it shouldn’t be a bad smell.

 

[Miami Reef]

Yes, tox is low. You might smell the dimethylsulfide that some bacteria make from it. It’s one of the main smells of the “ocean”, so it shouldn’t be a bad smell.

Thank you! I wasn’t born with a sense of smell, so that won’t be a concern.

I can dunk my face in concentrated skimmer waste and not smell a thing. lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you! I wasn’t born with a sense of smell, so that won’t be a concern.

I can dunk my face in concentrated skimmer waste and not smell a thing. lol

My wife has a bloodhound nose. She says it saves us from bad situations, but I think it just makes me take out the trash more often than needed. lol

 

[Miami Reef]

My wife has a bloodhound nose. She says it saves us from bad situations, but I think it just makes me take out the trash more often than needed. lol

Bloodhound nose? Ears like a bat?

Pretty cool! Were those traits hereditary?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Bloodhound nose? Ears like a bat?

Pretty cool! Were those traits hereditary?

I don’t know, but I would guess to some extent.

 

[Miami Reef]

I don’t know, but I would guess to some extent.

Ah, so I’m going to assume your daughters got your genes lol.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Ah, so I’m going to assume your daughters got your genes lol.

Actually, they are both adopted, so that’s not likely. lol

 

[Miami Reef]

Actually, they are both adopted, so that’s not likely. lol

I didn’t know that! That’s really cool!

 

[Miami Reef]

Bacteria will metabolize it. It is not skimmable. I doubt it binds much to carbon from seawater.

Last week I dosed PraziPro to my tank for fish flukes. It contained Oxybispropanol. The corals (LPS like torches/hammers/one an acro) absolutely despised it. I had a few losses. The nitrate was unchanged

This week I had to repeat the dose. I used powdered praziquantel + a little DMSO.

The corals look great thus far. The skimmer is off for a day, just like it had been the week prior. However, the nitrate significantly decreased (went to 0). I used similar mg/L of praziquantel. Ij addition, I’ve been overfeeding a lot after receiving more fish (preQT).


It seems like DMSO was the only variable…imagine I try DMSO as the carbon source.


That would be absolutely diabolical and insane to say out loud, right?

I will observe the corals for 1-2 days before deciding if dmso was safe, but the negative reaction to PraziPro was observed within the same day.

 

[Miami Reef]

The fish is fluke free btw.

 

[Miami Reef]

I don’t plan to keep the NO₃ at zero, but I could theoretically adjust the dose to fine tune it for when the nitrate climbs back up again.

I don’t know if this is even viable.

 

[Troylee]

Weird! Ive used Prazipro and Ruby rally pro with zero issues in my tank! My clam did get upset for a couple days but recovered just fine… you need to get some angel plus fenben flake it would have killed your blue cloves and fixed the fish up lol..

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It could be interesting, but there are a couple of concerns.

First is whether dmso is just interfering with the test. It can be oxidized and reduced.

Second is whether you generate a lot of dimethyl sulfide that you may not smell, but others might. lol

 

[Miami Reef]

Weird! Ive used Prazipro and Ruby rally pro with zero issues in my tank! My clam did get upset for a couple days but recovered just fine… you need to get some angel plus fenben flake it would have killed your blue cloves and fixed the fish up lol..

I knew I had flukes during the clove polyp issue. I tried searching if that food could help for fish flukes. It would have killed 2 birds with one stone, but the answer I’ve found was no, it wouldn’t have worked on the fish flukes.

 

[Miami Reef]

First is whether dmso is just interfering with the test. It can be oxidized and reduced.

I was thinking of that! How would I even figure out if the NO₃ is just getting interfered? Would I have to wait for the bacteria to fully metabolize the DMSO in order to see if the nitrate was truly lowered?

Second is whether you generate a lot of dimethyl sulfide that you may not smell, but others might. lol

But the dose required was so low. Do you think the smell would accumulate overtime? Would the skimmer export that dimethyl sulfide? Is there a sink for it?


I might actually consider biopellets now that I know my tank could theoretically tolerate some carbon sources.

…at least thus far. I don’t want to get too optimistic.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was thinking of that! How would I even figure out if the NO₃ is just getting interfered? Would I have to wait for the bacteria to fully metabolize the DMSO in order to see if the nitrate was truly lowered?



But the dose required was so low. Do you think the smell would accumulate overtime? Would the skimmer export that dimethyl sulfide? Is there a sink for it?


I might actually consider biopellets now that I know my tank could theoretically tolerate some carbon sources.

…at least thus far. I don’t want to get too optimistic.

Take seawater without dmso, add 10 ppm nitrate, measure it, add dmso, remeasure.

 

[Miami Reef]

Will do! I’ll report back on my findings!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The smell threshold for dimethylsulfide in air is about 0.1 to 0.01 ppm. I’m not sure how that relates to the water concentration.

 

[Miami Reef]

I’m back with the results.

Fresh sea mix. 35 PSU. Temp around 73F

Initial sample: 16 ppm NO₃

Added 4-5 drops DMSO to the remaining 900 mL sample. I think that concentration is much higher than the 5-10 mL / 260 gallons.

Magnetic stirred very heavily for about a minute.

Test afterwards: 17.6 ppm (within the Hanna accuracy range.


Pics for fun

I will add my comments in the next post. Thanks for reading.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Ok, good. Rules out interference. :)