krisw wrote: Regarding Seachem in the garden, I'm primarily concerned with Excel. Even the Seachem rep at the AGA noted that it's the only bottle with a child proof cap.
Glutaraldehyde is an irritant to the skin, eyes and respiratory system. The child proof cap is likely for those reasons. I admit I'm no scientist but from what I have read on Glutaraldehyde, contraindications preventing you from using it in your vegetable garden at the concentrations in the fish tank water we are disposing of do not exist. If anyone could point out the error of my ways, please do. The stuff is used in animal husbandry and a variety of agricultural settings for sanitisation and disinfection purposes.
Thanks for the extra documents folks. I've had several chemists come up to me at various talks voicing concern over the stuff. I believe it's been studied at as a carcinogen, but is not classified as such. It doesn't seem to be as bad as other -aldehydes, or I wouldn't use it period. I'm just sensitive to what ferts and inputs I use in my garden, as we prefer to eat as organic as possible.
My biggest concern was that the tank water dosed with glutaraldehyde would kill the micro-bacteria important to organic gardens or that it would accumulate in the soil. This does not seem to be a problem. But, to each there own. I'm smoking a known carcinogen at this very moment.
Greater Washington Aquatic Plant Association
Mixed with the sound of water's murmuring
a sensitive plant in a garden grows.
I can't see it being much of a problem, we use things that are much worse like Chlorine Bleach and not only do we pour it into the garden, down the sink, we drink it. Well I don't because we have a well but when I'm at relatives etc. a glass of water is the last thing I want to drink, to me it taste like a chemical bath after 18 years of well water.
A few more papers concerning the environmental fate of Glutaraldehyde and a little more information. In an aquarium we add about 2ppm per 24 hours. If I understand the papers correctly, by the end of the day most of that is cooked. I think the childproof cap is just to keep curious children from drinking the stuff.
I am less inclined to recommend it, but only because I think of it as cheating. It does offer some advantages that are hard to ignore though so I have found alternatives to excel to save a little money. One I use is MetriCide 14-day and it can be used at half the recommended excel dose. Metricide is 2.6% Glutaraldehide, ruffly twice the amount found in excel.
1 gallon of Metricide can be purchased from dealmed.com for $30.
To calculate how to mix your Glutaraldehyde for making DIY excel you can use wet's Glutaladehyde converter at, http://rota.la/glut/
Last edited by tug on Thu Jul 11, 2013 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Greater Washington Aquatic Plant Association
Mixed with the sound of water's murmuring
a sensitive plant in a garden grows.
While the stuff is toxic if you drink enough of it (how you could do this, I don't know -- it's pretty funky), I don't believe it persists long enough to do any harm. However, it is an anti-microbial at higher doses, so if you were using it in soil, it might reduce the bacterial community there.
