Melafix Recipie

Melafix is sold in two different concentrations - pond and aquarium.  Same stuff just different concentration.  My 16 oz bottle (non-pond stuff) says to use 1 tsp per 10 gallons US of water.  Ingredients are 1% melaleuca and 99% inert ingredients.

Apparently the pond version is 5% melaleuca and is used at 1 tsp per 50 gallons.  It is more economical to buy the pond version!

The label for the pond version describes MelaFix as using "the  antibacterial power of Melaleuca (Tea Tree) extract for the treatment of bacterial infections."

You can read about the patent at:

http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/srchnum.htm

U.S. Patent # 5882647 - enter the number in the search window.

Per another post, by Eric Hanson

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=instructions+right+off+the+bottle&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=40b64c1.0210312146.6e4b16fe%40posting.google.com&rnum=1

the detailed ingredients are:

"Melafix is composed of:

1% cajeput oil
1% emulsifier (Crovol PK-70 nonionic emulsifier)
0.2% defoamer (FG-10 by Dow Corning)
97.8% deionized water"

An aqueous solution without emulsifier and defoamer can be used, but the mixture must be shaken vigorously for 1-5 minutes first.


Note cajeput oil is another name for oil from the tree Melaleuca.  From my reading, the patent is based on oil from a vietnamese version of the tree, Melaleuca
cajuputi, M. leucadendron and other species of Melaleuca. 

Apparently some of the herbal/health food oil, called "Tea tree oil" is from an australian version of the Melaleuca tree, Melaleuca alternifolia .  Haven't heard of any specific differentiation.  However, it appears that the term cajeput is used only for the vietnamese oils from M. cajuputi and M. leucadendron.  So if you want to be mixing EXACTLY the same stuff, it seems to me you want to find "cajeput" oil, not merely "Tea tree" oil.

Also wondering about the "CAS# 8008-98-8" I found it is a scientific reference which translates to
"Oil of cajeput [8008-98-8] Synonyms: Melaleuca cajuputi powell oil; Melaleuca leucadendron l. oil; Cajuput oil; Oil of cajeput; Cajeput oil"

Sources:  I read that it may be available locally in health food stores.  A web store for it is:
www.selectoils.com/essentialoi...ils/cajeput.htm
1 oz. $4.25          4 oz $9.75

Links for Further Information

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=tea+tree+oil+fish&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=F49a8.2414%24PL1.55897%40news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk&rnum=1

http://www.attop.net/

http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/month.200211/msg00447.html

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=40b64c1.0210312146.6e4b16fe%40posting.google.com&rnum=10&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dtea%2Btree%2Boil%2Bfish%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26hl%3Den

http://www.maincamp.com.au/

http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC36717

http://www.selectoils.com/essentialoils/cajeput.htm