Slime coat "conditioners." If you're thinking of supplementing your fishes' natural slimecoat with a natural gel or polyvinyl "protective" coating, you ought to be aware of the varied chemistry that makes fish mucus an active part of the animals defenses against bacteria, fungi and even some unicellular parasites.
Seachem warns that some slimecoat products may permanently foul Seachem's synthetic beadform adsorbent "HyperSorb" and impede its regeneration. Think about what that warning implies. Since this is a physical fouling rather than a chemical reaction, the adsorbent action of activated carbon is likely to be affected in a comparable way. You could make a controlled test yourself: you'd take equal dry weights of fresh carbon in equal amounts of distilled water in capped test vials. You'd add a few drops of your favored slimecoat conditioner to one sample and shake both equally. Now you'd add a drop of bromthymol blue (your pH indicator) to each sample and shake again equally. Fresh activated carbon should adsorb any dye. Is there a difference in color, viewed against a white backdrop? When you repeat the experiment twice, do you keep getting similar results? Do you think there's any relevance to the surfaces of gill lamellae?
"Slime coat" enhancers need not be refined from organic sources. One of the stock polymer "slime coat replacements" in conditioners is polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP-30) which is also used as a stabilizer that adds "mouth feel" to beer.
Aloe vera. In the 1980s, gel derived from the subtropical succulent Aloe vera experienced a faddish popularity phase where it started to appear in some of the unlikeliest consumer products. Aloe vera gel has a numbing effect on the nerve endings in human skin, so it's genuinely welcome in the kitchen to soothe minor burns. Its gel keeps damaged tissues from drying, and to that extent Aloe vera "promotes healing." It has never had any legitimate use in aquariums, where drying of tissues is scarcely an issue. None whatsoever. Pure marketing.
/www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/wate...ditioners.shtml
dont beat yourself up about it tho. syphoning is a necessity. sometimes they are too curious for their own good.
