Hydrogel (Carrageenan) as food & drug additive?

[pooootiqe]

By coincidence I found out that carrageenan solution, prepared in RODI water, would gel when introduced to saltwater. This made me think whether it can be used as a carrier for powdered foods, vitamins or amino acids for fish and coral assumption. Some simple tests showed that 2% carrageenan dispersed in saltwater magnetically stirred at ~400 rpm gave ~ 200 - 400um particles, while 0.5% carrageenan gave ~100um particles under similar stirring conditions. The particles are rather polydisperse which could be beneficial for feeding different organisms in the tank. Some questions I haven't found answers for (haven't done much digging into literature yet):

Can fish digest it?
Can corals digest it?
Will the leftover food be degraded by bacteria quickly?

They are a bit more biology questions than chemistry questions but hope Randy and others can shed some light on the topic

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Some bacteria can certainly metabolize it (don't know how fast), but I do not know if a coral can.

 

[Shirak]

No clue about Carrageenan but Tropic Marin Reef Snow does I think something similar? I have used it and it works well. Maybe with liquids such as aminos and vitamins you could moisten your powdered food first and then mix with the Reef Snow? Maybe @Hans-Werner has additional information.

 

[pooootiqe]

No clue about Carrageenan but Tropic Marin Reef Snow does I think something similar? I have used it and it works well. Maybe with liquids such as aminos and vitamins you could moisten your powdered food first and then mix with the Reef Snow? Maybe @Hans-Werner has additional information.

Haven’t heard of that one before, interesting! Can’t find much info about it, just the one video on Facebook. It says reef snow makes “flakes” of powdered food, not quite sure what that means in terms of particle size.

 

[Shirak]

Haven’t heard of that one before, interesting! Can’t find much info about it, just the one video on Facebook. It says reef snow makes “flakes” of powdered food, not quite sure what that means in terms of particle size.

There was a brief discussion last June about it. It's interesting stuff in that you can mix it to the consistency you want and when you add to the tank will make small to large particles. Not really flakes as in dried flake food.

I haven't used it in a while but I have been in need of feeding reef roids for PO4 to my Goni garden. I might try it again since the Rroids are such a fine powder. The Goni's might prefer something larger to feed on.

 

[pooootiqe]

There was a brief discussion last June about it. It's interesting stuff in that you can mix it to the consistency you want and when you add to the tank will make small to large particles. Not really flakes as in dried flake food.

I haven't used it in a while but I have been in need of feeding reef roids for PO4 to my Goni garden. I might try it again since the Rroids are such a fine powder. The Goni's might prefer something larger to feed on.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Definitely let us know how gonis react to it. I don't have the best luck with gonis, but with a reliable feeding method would certainly give it another shot.

It does sound like reef snow behaves similarly to carrageean. Does it also dissolve readily in water, and turn into off-white particles when dosed into the powerhead?

I thought about using it to trap live phytoplankton and bacteria, similar to your idea, for feeding small and large mouthed organisms. Bottled bacteria (Aquaforest Pro Bio S or Zeobak, forgot which one I tested) can be grown out very quickly in commonly available bacterial media. I'm curious if it could be an all-in-one live food option when mixed with reef snow (provided that fish and other corals can digest it).

 

[Shirak]

I did two scoops of the TM into 100ml water. It gets translucent fairly quickly but the lumps take a while with some mixing involved to incorporate them completely. I put it all together in a sealed container and shook for several minutes. This greatly sped up the process imo.

Used about 5ml of the liquid and two scoops of Rroids. Stirred it up briefly. You can see it's clumping up in various amounts. It had a distinct gelatinous texture. Dumped into the tank and the wave makers sucked it up and spit it out. Very much clearly visible blobs (flakes?) of a variety of sizes. Turned off the wave makers and return pump. They turn back on after 15/20min or so.

It does what it says it does. Do I need to use it for a tank full of gonis? I dunno I have so many different powdered and small particle size foods. Tomorrow I think I will try diluting the mix by 25% (1.5 scoops/100mlH2O) and mix up my usual variety instead of using straight tank water.

 

[Shirak]

Just a side note.. I am feeding the reef roids to help keep phosphate levels from hitting bottom. Not sure Goni's need them specifically and there are lots of things you can feed Goniopora. I think the TM Reef Snow is interesting material and could potentially be used with liquid feeds and supplements, medications etc substituting some of the H2O with the desired liquid additive.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If you are into experimenting, sodium alginate (a seaweed extract) will crosslink with magnesium and calcium in seawater to form aggregates. It is cheap and pure.

Sodium Alginate

Magical Ingredients for the Modern Cook

modernistpantry.com

 

[pooootiqe]

I did two scoops of the TM into 100ml water. It gets translucent fairly quickly but the lumps take a while with some mixing involved to incorporate them completely. I put it all together in a sealed container and shook for several minutes. This greatly sped up the process imo.

Used about 5ml of the liquid and two scoops of Rroids. Stirred it up briefly. You can see it's clumping up in various amounts. It had a distinct gelatinous texture. Dumped into the tank and the wave makers sucked it up and spit it out. Very much clearly visible blobs (flakes?) of a variety of sizes. Turned off the wave makers and return pump. They turn back on after 15/20min or so.

It does what it says it does. Do I need to use it for a tank full of gonis? I dunno I have so many different powdered and small particle size foods. Tomorrow I think I will try diluting the mix by 25% (1.5 scoops/100mlH2O) and mix up my usual variety instead of using straight tank water.

Thanks for sharing! Very cool stuff. Do you see any particles left in the filter sock a day or two after feeding?

 

[pooootiqe]

If you are into experimenting, sodium alginate (a seaweed extract) will crosslink with magnesium and calcium in seawater to form aggregates. It is cheap and pure.

Sodium Alginate

Magical Ingredients for the Modern Cook

modernistpantry.com

Thanks for the suggestion Randy. I got some to play with but it didn't seem to gel in saltwater.

 

[Shirak]

Thanks for sharing! Very cool stuff. Do you see any particles left in the filter sock a day or two after feeding?

Not using any type of mechanical filtration. Bare bottom setup so I siphon detritus weekly. I am sure a sock would catch them as soon as they went into the sump. Good question if they would break up and release the finer particles over a day or two period.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks for the suggestion Randy. I got some to play with but it didn't seem to gel in saltwater.

How did you test that?

 

[pooootiqe]

How did you test that?

Dissolved it in DI water (1% ish) and dripped it into a cup of saltwater when stirring.

 

[pooootiqe]

Not using any type of mechanical filtration. Bare bottom setup so I siphon detritus weekly. I am sure a sock would catch them as soon as they went into the sump. Good question if they would break up and release the finer particles over a day or two period.

Yeah, I wonder if we could incorporate some type of bacteria that can use marine snow as a carbon source and degrade it / use up the nutrients trapped inside quickly. I'll mess around with bottled bacteria to see if any of the strains inside already does that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Dissolved it in DI water (1% ish) and dripped it into a cup of saltwater when stirring.

Some things to try:

Dissolve in di and add a calcium supplement in di. That will for sure work. Seawater (a little) added to the alginate in di may also work, but it might have too much sodium.

Raising the concentration of the alginate may also help.

 

[pooootiqe]

Some things to try:

Dissolve in di and add a calcium supplement in di. That will for sure work. Seawater (a little) added to the alginate in di may also work, but it might have too much sodium.

Raising the concentration of the alginate may also help.

Thanks Randy, I’ll give it a try with calcium chloride.