Aquabiomics on microbacter 7??

[Derrick0580]

Has anyone seen James Graham’s (Telegram) instagram posts on microbacter 7? According to my lfs manager James sent pure microbacter 7 in to aquabiomics and it’s over 50% a detrimental strain of bacteria to coral. I can’t remember the name but it only contains like 20% a beneficial bacteria that you can actually buy on its own in powdered form on amazon. This being said my lfs said they would never recommend MB7 to anyone unless they absolutely just had to have it, and would not be restocking it once they sold out. I hope I’m not kicking a hornet’s nest here because I know a lot of people swear by it!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm a bit skeptical on how good bacteria vs bad bacteria is determined.

 

[Big E]

Sounds just like the good and bad cholesterol theory..............lol

 

[Spare time]

Here is the post for reference https://www.instagram.com/telegraham/p/C05YPGrL5Wj/?img_index=1

 

[Spare time]

I am not sure if that is true that over 50% is harmful, given that one single bacterial genus (Bacillus) makes up something like 90%. Other bacterial products, like eco balance from Dr Tim's, also primarily use Bacillus bacteria.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I don't see anything in the link claiming a "detrimental" bacteria.

 

[brandon429]

I'm 100% skeptical on anything aquabiomics puts in a report for money. Eli says in one post he's tested caribsea wet bagged sand and found no bacteria, no action regarding ammonia control, and then several people since then without cash on the line find it highly active equal to bottle bac ability. the threads are easy to find. who says the genetic sample didn't come from a lab tech's thumnail cross contamination? we believe anything we pay for as the absolute truth: reefs are easily led.

 

[areefer01]

I'm 100% skeptical on anything aquabiomics puts in a report for money. Eli says in one post he's tested caribsea wet bagged sand and found no bacteria, no action regarding ammonia control, and then several people since then without cash on the line find it highly active equal to bottle bac ability. the threads are easy to find. who says the genetic sample didn't come from a lab tech's thumnail cross contamination? we believe anything we pay for as the absolute truth: reefs are easily led.

You really have it out for Aquabiomics, don't you.

 

[Derrick0580]

Here is the post for reference https://www.instagram.com/telegraham/p/C05YPGrL5Wj/?img_index=1

This was not the graph I was shown! The one I saw was further broken down and named individual strains within that group.

 

[Spare time]

This was not the graph I was shown! The one I saw was further broken down and named individual strains within that group.

Oh ok. Do you have the link? I wonder how much they claim to break it down beyond genus as that is very difficult to do with bacteria

 

[GlassMunky]

You really have it out for Aquabiomics, don't you.

with good reason..... that company is a joke.


but forgetting my own disdain for AB, and my lack of confidence in their tests....

I dont see what the issue is with the PNS ProBio? is he mad because it had other bacteria besides the PNSB? i dont think its advertised as SOLEY PNSB (maybe it is i havnt used it for reef tanks)
The other weird thing about that post to me is that for some reson he equates the fact that the PNS smells like sulfer is a bad thing.... thats the smell of the PNSB.
I use a bacterial inncoulate for my garden and plants that has PNSB in it as well (it really is a great facultative anaerobe all around) and it smells exactly the same.
so thats really a non-point and rather unscientific for someone whos so keen on data and science.

 

[GlassMunky]

also, besides the fact that Baccillus is super easy and cheap to produce, why are you saying they are bad? Its one of the main microbes in some of Tropic-Marines bacterial products and people rant and rave about those so

I really dont think we are at a point of being able to label whole genera of microbes as "good" or "bad" yet unless they are 100% shown to cause disease/infection. we just dont know enough

 

[taricha]

Here's the post with the harmful bacteria result from a product he doesn't name.
post from telegraham

The implication is that the bottle was contaminated. But he says he didn't use it on his tank, so it was likely purchased just for the testing, which narrows (but doesn't close) the window of contamination a bit.

there's enough info from that post plus these two to conclude that it likely was MB7 that was the tested product.
https://www.instagram.com/telegraham/p/C05YPGrL5Wj/?img_index=1

https://www.instagram.com/telegraham/p/C1QL_unrvcz/

It's quite an unusual result. The bacteria that is "harmful" is serratia marcescens which is in the bacillus family and is known both as a pathogen of humans AND more recently found as a coral pathogen in the Caribbean. Even within a single species, there can be enough strain differences - that maybe the human-version doesn't acually infect corals and vice versa, or maybe not.
Usually in these results you see human bacteria or marine bacteria and the source is a bit more clear cut who the source was: the aquarium system or the humans involved.

This is clearly not a case of "MB7 infects aquarium corals" because frankly nobody reports that occurance. Lots of people use MB7 and nobody claims that the use of that product started unusual coral infections. And that's a conclusion that people would absolutely talk about if it happened a couple of times.

The likelier interpretation is that these products contain nutrients in the media and can grow any number of things that might be introduced. Either in the bottle if contaminated at the facility, or on the hobbyist end, or if preservatives are used in the product then after dilution growth is possible.

I once took a bunch of the popular hobby grunge-eating products (including MB7) and cultured them up individually on sterilized fish flakes in saltwater. (nothing grew in the controls)
I then bundled them all together in one aquabiomics sample - I wasn't trying to ID each product generally, just survey.
I got a lot of what you'd expect - lots of bacillus, some other bacteria known for nutrient roles, but the number one prominent species was in a genus that's a fish pathogen. (There was no serratia marcescens)

anyway, my perspective is that most things in these bottles do not establish as part of the aquarium community (we have data to support that), and we should be glad for that because there's no guarantees of quality control of what strains might be in the bottle and what might grow once you open the bottles and expose to bacteria in your home aquarium environment.
Certainly don't try to "culture up" a bottle of heterotrophs on a random rich food environment because pathogens grow well in such environments and you have no guarantees of what you're growing.
What's to guarantee you wouldn't culture up a pathogen like I did?

(I except PNS products from this "don't culture up heterotrophs" rule, because their niche is selective enough that you can know what you are growing, and know if you've failed - distinctive color)

 

[djf91]

Is there any information on where these bottle bacteria come from? Where they are grown? Is it just some dude dipping a bottle in his aquarium? Does he know what bacteria are in each bottle? Always seemed like total bs to me.

To think that you could bottle all of the important bacteria species from a South Pacific reef, both benthic and pelagic, is laughable.

 

[taricha]

Is there any information on where these bottle bacteria come from? Where they are grown?

It's a mix. Dr Tim has said that his bacteria were cultured up from aquarium systems.
The PNS bacteria were widely used in aquaculture in Asia before they were brought to the US hobby.
Some of these species you'll find in aquabiomics reports on bottles are species that are used in human probiotics. Some sellers of hobby bacterial products have said that they get theirs from bulk suppliers of the bacteria that they want. I interpret this as likely meaning human probiotics.

To think that you could bottle all of the important bacteria species from a South Pacific reef, both benthic and pelagic, is laughable.

It's even more challenging than that. Even if you get pacific reef rock and pacific reef water, the microbiome you would find in your aquarium would still not look much like the microbiome of the reef that those materials were taken from. It's strongly driven by local conditions.

 

[djf91]

It's even more challenging than that. Even if you get pacific reef rock and pacific reef water, the microbiome you would find in your aquarium would still not look much like the microbiome of the reef that those materials were taken from. It's strongly driven by local conditions.

Interesting. Where can I read up on this?

 

[KrisReef]

I'm a bit skeptical on how good bacteria vs bad bacteria is determined.

I always thought you could tell by checking their voter registration but even that metric doesn’t work any more

The other question is who filled the bottle and with what were they working with?

 

[telegraham]

The implication is that the bottle was contaminated. But he says he didn't use it on his tank, so it was likely purchased just for the testing, which narrows (but doesn't close) the window of contamination a bit.

I tested two different bottles purchased a year or two apart. Both bottles contained a bug identified as Serratia marcescens. That window is closed and there ain't no draft.