It's been more than 50 hours after I added the citric acid and no crystals formed. The citric acid I have is not a powder, is more like bigger grains of salt, I can still see the citric acid at the botom, is not fully dissolved is that common?

Also, I made sure I placed the ethyl acetate in the fridge for 24 hours (my fridge freezes liquid if they stay too long) removed the water and filter the solvent.

https://i.ibb.co/VtP0V8n/20230912-173938.jpg

Is this from using cactus material with known potency?

Yes, I would ask the same question. In my experience crystals start growing substantially well within three hours (I add citric when its still cold from the fridge). If the EA is room temp this can take 12 hours or more to start. But never two days.

Also I cannot open the pic to judge - but again my experience is that the solution is way too dark green to see the citric pile up if the yield is going to be good. If you can see the citric then the solution is obviously quite clear and that's for me a notice of poor yield coming up. But even my worst yields (<0.2%) I could see crystals. Just not so many.

If it clouds when citric is added this is a very good sign. As the cloud slowly clears (like a sinking level line) to the bottom then the reaction is pretty much done.

Yes - normally a jpeg would display with a preview. The file appears to be corrupted. Or did you, ozmflb, simply change the file extension in the filename without converting from its original format? Maybe a .heic on an i-phone?

Hopefully not some fake account with a trojan that is executed upon opening, which now will log all our data and location Downloaded 94x, Paranoia kicking in

Does it work now?


Lol no, I fixed it

OK, that definitely looks like the cactus material is very light on product to me. I see that sort of transparency/colour when I get low yield. I have been working my way through my garden testing each different plant and IME that's a sure sign of low yield.

When yields are over 1.5% (CIELO) the EA is much darker green. The only expception for me was some old powder which created a lighter gold coloured solvent.

Here are two comparisons - the one on left is still in cloudy phase after adding citric and yielded >2.8% and one on right is almost done crystalising (red color is dominant now when lit directly - the green slowly disappears as the cloudiness does from top to bottom) and was a lower yield ~ 1.2%

I cannot usually see the beaker floor even when backlit until the cloudiness has completely gone.

Second pic: from mainly TBM powder but mixed with old powder. Not green now, but even though its more yellow now the solvent is very opaque when cloudy. Obviously chlorophyl must play a large role in the green colouring, but somehow the translucency seems definitely related to the yield. In this case yield was over 3.5%. The close-up shows the solvent more clear now as crystalising is in full swing - you can see the red/brown layer coming in from the top - just not as obvious as when its green.

Pic 3 - difference in powder - you can see which was green vs yellow

*EDIT: Sorry - seems I'm having problems with image upload too!

I'm facing similar problems, always since I started with cacti half a year ago Now yesterday again was struck by the unholy cacti god, while I processed a HUGE 40 cm height, but 10 cm diameter bridgesii. Due to the diameter, this monster was probably 10+ years old, but I just cut out a middle piece. I kept it in the dark for "only" 1 month, but on top of that chopped him every week with a fork to simulate parasites etc. and (potentially) increase yield.

Now after running the TEK was a charm like always, I placed it into the fridge but even reduced temperature by 4 ° to be extra sure, coming to something like 1-3 °C. Now after decanting and putting the ca monohydr. inside I have seen strong clouding as usual, but now as the clouds cease it is just a wet and slimy residue at the bottom ...

picture attached > 1

Then I now placed it upwards so all this slime will collect and it looks like my 'usual slime'. But really low amount considering it was 120 g bridgesii in darkness and with fork attacks. Collected slime:

picture attached > 2

I still have 30 g more from originally 150 g from this cactus. I extracted it separately and I am still to drop in the CA, but made the fridge decant. Now when just doing it too, I fear to simply get again a mini amount of goo.

Would it be smarter/possible to simply dry it (freezer or salt water wash?) and then throw in some fumaric acid? is this precipitation more fail safe? sadly I would of course love to have the OG CA needles, but if fumaric acid works 100 % if the ea was dried before, then I would just now start moving over to this last step

EDIT to Merkin:
My extract is strongly green as you say and I extract until the green is definetly much more faint from the first pull!

I did a second try and the problem was definetly on the cosistency of the paste, the first paste was more solid and harder to mix with the spoon, first try I added 250ml of water, the second try I added more than 250ml to have a softer paste