CrunchyBananas
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Threads like this make R2R such a valuable resource
Understanding Vibrant: Algaefix, Polixetonium Chloride / Busan 77
- Thread starter taricha
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craigbingman
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I see that Randy mentioned it above. When I first started reading this thread, I thought it was going to be about controlling algae via phosphate limitation because the QA polymers bind phosphate in a form more easily exported by skimmers.
MnFish1
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@taricha - I believe you are correct. I hope some of the suggestions I made led you to do these other experiments. I sincerely appreciate your efforts and also that you listened. As far as vibrant - I've said - it was an extreme success in my tank (freshwater) - and an extreme mess in my reef tank. I do not think - without more info from the company that I would use it again in my reef tank. I also wouldn't use algaefix. I guess it comes down to - in the end - if it sounds too good to be true - it probably is. I would hope that lots of products we use would be tested - side by side with controls. And posted in the 'experiment' section. I still have 2 tanks with live rock waiting for a nitrifying test after not dosing anything for 2 months. And - also we await your final results
Dennis Cartier
Valuable Member
Hang on a sec. That sounds like the answer to a question that was asked earlier. Why do some users report their nutrients crashing after using Vibrant? If it makes phosphate more exportable, that may help to explain why some users see this effect.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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I personally don't think it will happen in seawater like it would happen in fresh.
Far too much competition from sulfate and chloride.
The best phosphate binding polymer I know of (aside from freakish things in the scientific literature made with attached metals like copper) is crosslinked polyallylamine (my drug for hyperphosphatemia in people) and I tried it in seawater, It wasn't successful at lowering phosphate.
It may well help export organics that contain P.
ReefBeta
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I do see successful stories from vibrant. I just take it the different angle. Maybe we should open our mindset to algaecide. In some certain scenarios, it might possible to be quite helpful.
MnFish1
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Totally agree.
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As always, nice work with huge dollop of cleverness. Your persistence is amazing.Part 3: If Vibrant contains other ingredients, they are insufficient to change the properties from Algaefix in any easily measurable way
Part 1 (first post) is about establishing the identity of the active ingredient and Part 2 (post 16) is about establishing its concentration. Part 3 is about looking for other things either indicated on the label or that would be chemically relevant that may have been added and would distinguish Vibrant from Algaefix.
I actually spent a fairly large amount of time trying to eliminate the very boring/stupid possibility that Vibrant simply replicated the Algaefix ingredient and concentration and added nothing else. I was unable to eliminate that possibility. Below are measurements and observations, none of which distinguish vibrant from algaefix, and some of which distinguish vibrant from all other hobby bacterial products, and others are relevant to the claimed ingredients on the label.
A. Density
Specific gravities of Vibrant and Algaefix were measured to be indistinguishable. Other hobby bacterial products I measured were everywhere from 1.000 to 1.026.
B. Mass of Dried Residue
3.00 mL each of Algaefix and Vibrant (and distilled water for comparison) were dried on a coffee warmer overnight to compare the amount of non-volatile material remaining.
Algaefix and Vibrant seem to contain an indistinguishable amount of volatile / nonvolatile material (above data in grams).
C. Dried drop appearance
I dried drops of a bunch of different products on a glass pane overnight on a coffee warmer to compare the appearance and texture of what’s left behind.
1- Distilled, 2- saltwater, 3- Algaefix, 4- Vibrant, 5- Algae Control (Tetra), 6- Algae Clean Out (Fritz), 7- Vibrant Fresh, 8- Waste Away, 9- MicroBacter7, 10- MicroBacter Clean, 11- Pristine (Seachem), 12- Fritz 460, 13- Bacto Therapy (Fauna Marin), 14- One & Only, 15- Biospira, 16- none.
All bacterial blends and saltwater dried leaving behind crusty opaque residue. The polixetonium chloride algaecides (3 through 7) dry clear leaving behind a sticky totally clear spot, except Algae Clean Out, it contains something additional and dries cloudy. The polyquat algaecide products all rehydrated and became wet again when left cool in the air for hours. No others did.
D. Product pH
I measured pH for the algaecides (red) and the bacterial products. Algaefix and Vibrant (and Vibrant Freshwater) are indistinguishable in pH, two bottles of each shows the bottle to bottle variation. Algae Clean Out (Fritz) again shows it has other additives.
F. Failure of Hanna PO4 test
This is a random one, but the coagulation properties of polixetonium chloride means that a tiny amount of it can break the otherwise very reliable Hanna ULR P test chemistry. This is at 4mL of Algaefix and Vibrant per Liter of tank water.
Cloudiness after 2 min shake, coagulation and falling out of solution by 10min. (Algaefix left cuvette, vibrant the right.)
G. Product Fluorescence
Organics are often moderately fluorescent under UV light, many waste products of bacterial metabolism as well as dissolved organic carbon released by algae are usually detectably fluorescent. The polyquat algaecides and a bunch of bacterial products were all filtered (0.22 um) and then 2.0mL of the clear filtrate from each was excited at 365nm UV and the fluorescence was recorded.
You can see that all the polyquat algaecides have the same fluorescent response. Many bacterial products were much more fluorescent, and a couple were noticeably less. You can have very low media fluorescence by simply delivering filtered cells/spores in a very blank medium. If there were a lot of compounds derived from bacterial metabolism, like a straight bacterial culture, the fluorescence would be quite significant.
H. Centrifuged Pellet
1 - Microbacter7. 2 - Waste Away. 3 - Bacto Therapy (Fauna Marin). 4 - FritzZyme 460. 5 - Pristine (seachem). 6 - Vibrant, (Same for Algaefix - not pictured).
Unlike every other hobby bacterial product I’ve gotten my hands on, Vibrant produces no pellet or condensed material when centrifuged. Each tube was 10mL of thoroughly shaken product, centrifuged 4000rpm for 10min. Spores like those in Waste Away and live cells like the nitrifiers in biospira (not pictured) all pellet without difficulty. There is far far less (if any) pelletable material in either Vibrant or Algaefix.
I. Culture-up
I’ve done this with multiple different bottles of Vibrant, new and old. It seems not to be a fluke. It is possible to culture up the contents of Vibrant, and also Algaefix. Therefore neither product is sterile in spite of the amount of polixetonium chloride present.
Below is Instant Ocean at 1.026 S.G. enriched with LB broth + glucose, 10mL in each. Picture after 7 days.
I added 1 drop (0.05mL) of each of the following
1 & 2 duplicates - Distilled water (stayed clear for 7+ days)
3 & 4 duplicates - Vibrant run through an 0.22um syringe filter (stayed clear for 7+ days)
5 & 6 duplicates - Vibrant the same, except syringe filter removed (cloudy by 57hr)
7 Algaefix (cloudy by 45hr)
8 MicroBacter7 (cloudy by 48 hours)
9 Aquarium water (cloudy by 18 hrs)
So it is totally possible to culture up bacteria from bottles of 4.5% polyquat algaecide. This kind of culture-up with a rich food source does not distinguish between the presumably random contamination in Algaefix and a bona fide bacterial product like Microbacter7. Thus nothing can be concluded about Vibrant here except it isn’t sterile.
J. Saltwater/Freshwater bacterial activity suppression
I took aquarium water and added 250mg/L ground fish flake, 100mg/L glucose, and 2 drops/L methylene blue to show when O2 gets depleted by bacterial growth. Methylene blue loses its color when bacteria consume all the O2 in the water.
In saltwater the effect is very minor, Algaefix and Vibrant in amounts of 1/10 of the entire sample slowed down the decoloration barely - by under 1hr out of ~18 hours.
Because of the cationic nature of these chemicals they are expected to be more potent in freshwater than in hard water.
Doing the same thing as above with water from a lake near my house (added fish flake, glucose and methylene blue) showed a far stronger effect.
Even 1/100 of algaefix and Vibrant delayed the decolorization by bacteria for over a day. But the effect is not absolute, the high concentration - Algaefix and Vibrant at 1/10th of the whole sample still decolorized a few hours later. (for comparison, a 1/10th sample of Waste Away has a strong preservative, and never decolorized, even a couple of months later.)
Whether saltwater or fresh, the timeline of the decolorization by bacteria was exactly mirrored in Algaefix and Vibrant.
K. Chemical and Bacterial Digestibility
In order to look for organics without losing any volatiles as could have occurred in the drying preparation for the professional lab tests in part 1, I did COD and BOD tests. COD is chemical oxygen demand - that tests the amount of organic material by heated acidic digestion with a strong oxidizer. It will measure essentially all organics, including in cells. BOD measures organics by determining the Oxygen consumed when bacteria etc are fed something.
This graph shows COD: Algaefix and Vibrant contain the same amount of chemically digestible material. The yellow line represents the label organics that Vibrant claims. If it had those added to the same amount of polyquat as algaefix, then the lines for Algaefix and Vibrant would not agree as they do.
This graph shows the O2 consumed by aquarium water with either nothing, or 10x doses each of Algaefix, Vibrant, or the label organics claimed by Vibrant added. This data is in agreement with the polyquat being essentially indigestible, and the label amounts of aspartic acid claimed by Vibrant being absent. Vinegar at 0.5% (which is itself only ~5% acetic acid) is too tiny to be detected by this analysis.
These two measurements together do not support the possibility of significant organics in Vibrant either added to the polyquat as aspartic acid or other carbon dose, or as a significant amount of bacteria / bacterial product.
L. Addition of Vinegar
I used a small amount of vinegar to look at the possibility of Vibrant having 0.5% vinegar added. The product seems lightly buffered and tiny additions of vinegar move the pH a notable amount..
The two products react to vinegar additions the same, and the addition of 0.5% vinegar created a pH drop almost twice the difference in pH between the two. Nothing conclusive, but makes vinegar seem unlikely since the pHs of Vibrant and Algaefix are so close.
5 days after I did the above pH check, I noticed both tubes that had 1% vinegar added had microbial growth in colonies spread around the tubes. Below is a picture of each.
Left is the white growth on the tube that grew in algaefix with 1% vinegar and right is the white colonies that grew in Vibrant with 1% vinegar.
Here is a microscope image of the colonies from each, showing cells arranged in filaments (to confirm this isn't abiotic precipitation).
It seems that even at 4.5% polixetonium chloride, microbial activity isn’t prevented and if organics had been added to Vibrant, then they would not be stable. If Vibrant had 0.5% vinegar added to it, then it likely would have been consumed and bacteria would have grown. Shaking the bottle would dislodge the colonies and biomass would be apparent when examining the product, centrifuging, etc. The clarity of Vibrant suggests 0.5% vinegar is not a potential addition.
To summarize, part 1 establishes the ingredient as that in Algaefix, and part 2 establishes the concentration as the same in Algaefix. That is the only important part of the story for understanding how it functions as an algaecide. Part 3 illustrates that if something were added to make Vibrant not the same as algaefix, then it did not change the density, amount of volatile or non-volatile material, appearance of dried drops, pH, fluorescent emissions, nor create any centrifuge pellet material. Any hypothetical addition furthermore did not affect the way it cultures up, or suppresses bacterial growth, nor change the amount of chemical or biologically digestible material, nor the pH and bacterial growth response to vinegar.
I really enjoyed watching this story unfold. I hope everyone appreciates your transparency. You put everything on the table for us to review and critique. And though there might be a bias against the work of the non-affiliated scientist, I feel your work would fair well in a peer review.
OK, what’s next? How long do we have to wait for the next episode? Will it be another product Investigation? Will an aquarium “rule” evaporate? Hurry, the suspense is killing me.
Dan
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Yeah, good point.
The problem with anecdotal data and self-reporting is that they suffer from bias that is very difficult or impossible to remove. I will keep an open mind to good data.
Just to gild the lily on that last point, have you notice that scientific data that supports product claims is never shared with us by any product manufacturer?
shwareefer
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Read it all. Worth it.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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IMO, there are three questions (assuming it is the material indicated by taricha)
1. Are there reef aquarium scenarios where this material is useful?
2. Assuming 1 is yes, should I choose to use this specific product despite it's seemingly hidden and denied identity?
3. Should I use or recommend other products supplied by this company in spite of the issues in 2?
I do not know the answer to 1.
I do know my own answer to 2 and 3, but each consumer will have to decide for themselves what makes them use particular products.
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So is this how it can sometimes help clear up Dino's? By killing algae this raising nutrients?
Randy Holmes-Farley
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Just putting this link here for the record. It may have been posted earlier, but that's OK:
www.reef2reef.com
UWC states:
"No Algecide."
Vibrant Liquid Aquarium Cleaner * Discussion Thread
Insane great stuff...we love it here in Az,and the top LFS swear by it..I've tried it 2 weeks ago,wooow is all I'm gonna say...this is no snake oil
www.reef2reef.com
UWC states:
"No Algecide."
But when you simply change algaecide to mulloscicide it entirely changes the dynamics and implications of harm this product could inflict on ones reef. At the very least a simple warning could and should have been put on the label. To think I almost used this stuff on my reef full of gulf rock chock full of clams and such. Absoloutely outrageous.
@taricha thank you for sharing your findings. This has by far been the most valuable thread I've ever read and just glad I was here to catch it!
Very well done sir!
oh, good grief, that... ouch.
No, you probably would not have used a product that also has a listed function as a "molluscicide" with very valuable clams.
I’m now wanting to go back and sift through that old Vibrant thread, might be more interesting at this point in retrospect…
edit….ooops a lil late, posted right after Randy, thanks
edit….ooops a lil late, posted right after Randy, thanks
JCOLE
Grower of the Small Polyps
Just putting this link here for the record. It may have been posted earlier, but that's OK:
Vibrant Liquid Aquarium Cleaner * Discussion Thread
Insane great stuff...we love it here in Az,and the top LFS swear by it..I've tried it 2 weeks ago,wooow is all I'm gonna say...this is no snake oil
UWC states:
"No Algecide."
Well, I am sold! They said it so now we all can rest easy.
I always think of this when I see these "claims".
LgTas
Well-Known Member
If you're looking to use an algaecide/molluscicide on your reef tank why not save two thirds of your money and purchase those products that clearly state what they are rather than the one which just rebottles them with a marketing spin and associated price mark up.
If I may have a lil TOS latitude here, It maybe useful to revisit some older “Algaefix Marine” threads on other older forums, one in particular being quite lengthy.
Again, perhaps useful historical trends and even livestock reaction samples since these are perhaps essentially equivalent products
.
Again, perhaps useful historical trends and even livestock reaction samples since these are perhaps essentially equivalent products
.
ReefBeta
Valuable Member
Totally agree.
I don't mean we should give Vibrant a pass. Lying about the content of the product is unforgivable in my book.
What I mean is, given the positive results of some (unintended) use of algaecide, I presume there can be scenarios in reef aquariums that algaecide can be a useful tool, though the evidences are scattered, and seemingly polarized. It's a shift (of my perspective at least) from the absolute mindset of algaecide == bad.
But of course, use an actual algaecide product when algaecide is intended, like algaefix, not something pretended to be something else like vibrant. I will go as far as labeling all the success stories of vibrant to the success of algaefix.
ReefBeta
Valuable Member
Yeah, that was my point. Not that "we should give vibrant a chance even if it's algaecide", but "we might consider give algaefix a chance as algaecide might actually work for some". And now with clearer label, we have clearer cautions.
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