Understanding Vibrant: Algaefix, Polixetonium Chloride / Busan 77

[taricha]

Amazing work, Dan.

Presumably, these solids adsorbed the polyquat but not aquarium water alone.

This to me makes it pretty persuasive that what you're measuring is the un-reacted (still potent) polymer.

My gut says when I repeat this with my tank water, it'll turn out differently.

 

[Xero]

I wrote this up for my local group, but I decided to edit/append for R2R. Not sure how much of this is already repeated in this thread, but 60 pages is a heck of a lot to go through....

So, if you've ever seen me posting about algae - you'll know that I actually love algaefix - for turf algae/cladophora, it's actually the on-label use case for it - has cladophora written right on the bottle, which is an algae with both freshwater and saltwater variants, that plagues many tanks, ponds, you name it. When I realized this stuff was the cure to my turf algae plague, I started to ask around about it, and eventually had a good conversation with one of the more experienced LFS owners I know. He did a bit of everything, from ponds, to custom-building tanks, salt, fresh, reptiles, you name it. That said - he regularly had algaefix around and knew how to use it - both the large pond versions, and the small fresh/saltwater versions, all the same formula from my understanding. He had told me back then, many years ago, that the EPA takes this algacide very seriously. I have no idea the context of how he knew that, maybe this isn't the first time, but here we are today.

Okay, take a step back, vibrant comes on the market, everyone touts it as some kind of algae-eating bacteria, which sounds sus. The way you use it is awfully familiar too - results aren't instant, often takes a month or more - this is all how algaefix works. The main difference seems to be the dosing regime - algaefix is smaller doses, every 3 days, and vibrant suggests larger doses, weekly or biweekly. Given we now know what we know - I kinda feel vibrant was playing it dangerous.

This algaecide is flat out known to drop-fish-dead in freshwater if they even get near the stuff, it's toxicity in saltwater is much lower, but, you can look this stuff up, there's like numerous 10-20+ page long threads about using algaefix on various older reef and fish forums, its been around forever, so you often have to go back like a decade, but when you find it, people are using it to treat cladophora/turf as well as something people were calling "ghost algae" at the time. In fact - that's a good search term to pair up with algaefix to find some oddball information about the stuff. I've also heard it works on dictyota as well, its possible that "ghost algae" was just a translucent dictyota of some sort, but it's been a while since I've really looked into it.

You know what the one thing was that we never had much luck treating with it? Bubble algae. And numerous people had tried. No one had any sort of consistent results. In light of what we now know - I find it very odd that vibrant was touted as treatment for bubble.

Oddly enough - cladophora shares the same order, cladophorales, with Valoniaceae (bubble algae) being one family under it, and then cladophora and chaetomorpha are under Cladophoraceae - and I will say - algaefix definitely can/will trash chaeto - so perhaps it's mostly effective for things under the Cladophoraceae family? I really don't know. Lastly, there's Boodleaceae, this is the family that contains cladophoropsis, a similar algae to cladophora but it's a bit more fat/tubular. I believe algaefix also works on it, but I'm not 100% as I've never actually had cladophoropsis in my tanks, and the fact it doesn't usually consistently work on bubble makes me thing that maybe the tube/bubble-like algaes are more resistant to it.

That said, it's great stuff, if you use it for things we know it works for, and buy it under a label that advertises what it is correctly. The only good solution to bubble algae that I've found, is to go to a fish store, find a rock with bubble algae on it, put it into the tank with the emerald crabs, and then watch which crabs eat the bubble. Try to then further pick females from that lot. And that's not great, it's just the best that I've found.

Oddly enough, I feel like most of the time people that are really struggling to treat an algae problem are often struggling to identify the algae correctly in the first place. Like treating a lyngbya problem as if it's hair algae, I've run into this like 2-3 times in the past month alone. Must be that season. Or, treating cladophora as if it's hair algae, and maybe just throwing fluco at it, to no avail. These days, it's often a knee-jerk to say "fluco it!", and you know, that works pretty well for derbesia/bryopsis, but, algaefix has always been a tool in my back-pocket for some very specific algaes, other than that, though, it's somewhat annoying to use correctly.

After witnessing someone over-dosing a tank with algaefix at about 10x (due to some sort of math/calculation error), I got to see a very very rapid reduction in algae, while it definitely was not good for the inhabitants of the tank, with a massive water change, they mostly survived, the algae on the other hand, not so much. That said, witnessing that inspired me to experiment with using it as a coral dip, at 10x concentration.

Lastly, I did notice some conversation about UV in this thread and reactions with this algaecide. Both myself and the LFS owner I mentioned previously, are heavy UV users. So, needless to say, both of us have used it extensively with UV sterilizers, he ran heavy UV on his ponds too, so likewise, there as well. That said, all this only applies to my experiences with the genuine API Algaefix, at their suggested dosing regime, every 3 days. I truthfully never had much luck with vibrant as the suggested dose, but I think knowing what we know now, their dosing regime seems odd. Depending on the concentration (not sure if this has been covered?) it could even be bordering on reckless to dose all that much at once, most certainly it would be in freshwater.

 

[Dan_P]

Amazing work, Dan.


This to me makes it pretty persuasive that what you're measuring is the un-reacted (still potent) polymer.

My gut says when I repeat this with my tank water, it'll turn out differently.

I expect differences in observations too. Not sure anything we ever tested from our aquaria was the same

 

[A Young Reefer]

@Randy Holmes-Farley Is it likely that Vibrant started my ridiculously long battle with dinos? I’ve seen theories from others but figured since you are so active in replying, I would ask. Thanks in advance

One common symptom with using vibrant from my and others experience; is that nutrient levels often take a sharp nose dive after dosing. Dinos like such biological imbalances and thrive in conditions with very low or zero nutrient levels.
That’s why I used to suggest people to never over dose and stick with the recommended dose.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

This to me makes it pretty persuasive that what you're measuring is the un-reacted (still potent) polymer.

Although I can easily imagine complexes with soluble organics might reduce the biological activity of the polymer, while not being hydrophobic enough to precipitate it from solution.

Along comes SDS with its big hydrophobic tail, driving precipitation of the SDS/polymer complex.

 

[taricha]

I expect differences in observations too. Not sure anything we ever tested from our aquaria was the same

My feeling at the moment is that you are charting the behavior in the "low organics" tank water case, and my measurements are relevant for the "high organics" case. Your results will be more relevant for more hobbyists. But there are some systems that will behave like mine.

 

[Dan_P]

I wrote this up for my local group, but I decided to edit/append for R2R. Not sure how much of this is already repeated in this thread, but 60 pages is a heck of a lot to go through....

So, if you've ever seen me posting about algae - you'll know that I actually love algaefix - for turf algae/cladophora, it's actually the on-label use case for it - has cladophora written right on the bottle, which is an algae with both freshwater and saltwater variants, that plagues many tanks, ponds, you name it. When I realized this stuff was the cure to my turf algae plague, I started to ask around about it, and eventually had a good conversation with one of the more experienced LFS owners I know. He did a bit of everything, from ponds, to custom-building tanks, salt, fresh, reptiles, you name it. That said - he regularly had algaefix around and knew how to use it - both the large pond versions, and the small fresh/saltwater versions, all the same formula from my understanding. He had told me back then, many years ago, that the EPA takes this algacide very seriously. I have no idea the context of how he knew that, maybe this isn't the first time, but here we are today.

Okay, take a step back, vibrant comes on the market, everyone touts it as some kind of algae-eating bacteria, which sounds sus. The way you use it is awfully familiar too - results aren't instant, often takes a month or more - this is all how algaefix works. The main difference seems to be the dosing regime - algaefix is smaller doses, every 3 days, and vibrant suggests larger doses, weekly or biweekly. Given we now know what we know - I kinda feel vibrant was playing it dangerous.

This algaecide is flat out known to drop-fish-dead in freshwater if they even get near the stuff, it's toxicity in saltwater is much lower, but, you can look this stuff up, there's like numerous 10-20+ page long threads about using algaefix on various older reef and fish forums, its been around forever, so you often have to go back like a decade, but when you find it, people are using it to treat cladophora/turf as well as something people were calling "ghost algae" at the time. In fact - that's a good search term to pair up with algaefix to find some oddball information about the stuff. I've also heard it works on dictyota as well, its possible that "ghost algae" was just a translucent dictyota of some sort, but it's been a while since I've really looked into it.

You know what the one thing was that we never had much luck treating with it? Bubble algae. And numerous people had tried. No one had any sort of consistent results. In light of what we now know - I find it very odd that vibrant was touted as treatment for bubble.

Oddly enough - cladophora shares the same order, cladophorales, with Valoniaceae (bubble algae) being one family under it, and then cladophora and chaetomorpha are under Cladophoraceae - and I will say - algaefix definitely can/will trash chaeto - so perhaps it's mostly effective for things under the Cladophoraceae family? I really don't know. Lastly, there's Boodleaceae, this is the family that contains cladophoropsis, a similar algae to cladophora but it's a bit more fat/tubular. I believe algaefix also works on it, but I'm not 100% as I've never actually had cladophoropsis in my tanks, and the fact it doesn't usually consistently work on bubble makes me thing that maybe the tube/bubble-like algaes are more resistant to it.

That said, it's great stuff, if you use it for things we know it works for, and buy it under a label that advertises what it is correctly. The only good solution to bubble algae that I've found, is to go to a fish store, find a rock with bubble algae on it, put it into the tank with the emerald crabs, and then watch which crabs eat the bubble. Try to then further pick females from that lot. And that's not great, it's just the best that I've found.

Oddly enough, I feel like most of the time people that are really struggling to treat an algae problem are often struggling to identify the algae correctly in the first place. Like treating a lyngbya problem as if it's hair algae, I've run into this like 2-3 times in the past month alone. Must be that season. Or, treating cladophora as if it's hair algae, and maybe just throwing fluco at it, to no avail. These days, it's often a knee-jerk to say "fluco it!", and you know, that works pretty well for derbesia/bryopsis, but, algaefix has always been a tool in my back-pocket for some very specific algaes, other than that, though, it's somewhat annoying to use correctly.

After witnessing someone over-dosing a tank with algaefix at about 10x (due to some sort of math/calculation error), I got to see a very very rapid reduction in algae, while it definitely was not good for the inhabitants of the tank, with a massive water change, they mostly survived, the algae on the other hand, not so much. That said, witnessing that inspired me to experiment with using it as a coral dip, at 10x concentration.

Lastly, I did notice some conversation about UV in this thread and reactions with this algaecide. Both myself and the LFS owner I mentioned previously, are heavy UV users. So, needless to say, both of us have used it extensively with UV sterilizers, he ran heavy UV on his ponds too, so likewise, there as well. That said, all this only applies to my experiences with the genuine API Algaefix, at their suggested dosing regime, every 3 days. I truthfully never had much luck with vibrant as the suggested dose, but I think knowing what we know now, their dosing regime seems odd. Depending on the concentration (not sure if this has been covered?) it could even be bordering on reckless to dose all that much at once, most certainly it would be in freshwater.

Good points.

I wonder about the effectiveness of polyquats in saltwater. If they were a drug, would they have a large NNT, number needed to treat? By this I mean the number of aquaria with algae needed to be treated before one beneficial outcome was observed.

This large NNT might be, as you point out, a misdiagnosis of the nuisance photosynthetic organism. The second factor might be the minimum dose to be effective might rarely be attained. And the third factor is that polyquats are not effective in saltwater and/or polyquats are effective against very few marine algae.

 

[taricha]

Although I can easily imagine complexes with soluble organics might reduce the biological activity of the polymer, while not being hydrophobic enough to precipitate it from solution.

Along comes SDS with its big hydrophobic tail, driving precipitation of the SDS/polymer complex.

yep. There's always wiggle room this measured material. I read an EPA doc that had a line saying even the most sophisticated techniques cannot possibly distinguish the bound polymer from the unbound (doc from '96 or so).

But the fact that Ulva water doesn't budge the measurement at all, while ulva tissue removes it almost completely makes me lean pretty heavily toward the idea that Dan's measurement is unbound. (I still think measurements of vibrant material in my water is in the bound form)

TW=tank water; Ulva Effluent=Ulva culture water; GAC effluent=water exiting GAC reactor; IO=Instant Ocean from storage bucket.

 

[taricha]

@Xero Thanks! Appreciate the info on first-hand experience with it. Agree that old Algaefix threads + vibrant threads act as a good combined log of experiences.

Did want to point out that the dosages aren't actually different.
Algaefix 1ml per 10 Gal.
Vibrant 1ml per 10 Gal.

Algaefix is every 3 days. Vibrant is once every 2 weeks if you don't have a problem. Once a week if you do have a problem - this is essentially the standard dose as used in vibrant threads. And tough cases / hair algae, it's repeatedly recommended (in the big vibrant thread, by UWC and others) vibrant 1ml/ 10 gallon, 2x per week. And at that point, you're at the same dose and frequency as the algaefix label.

 

[A Young Reefer]

what's the best explanation for the sudden drop in nutrients after using vibrant?
even though it kills algae and as a result it should release nutrients into the water column.

 

[a.t.t.r]

what's the best explanation for the sudden drop in nutrients after using vibrant?
even though it kills algae and as a result it should release nutrients into the water column.

Binding to organics and screwing up testing is one possibility. Binding and precipitating is another( @Randy Holmes-Farley wanna is this possible? ) Another is rapid bacterial uptake. I bet if you sent the results for an ICP test you would not see the falling nutrients but see they are still right there in the water.

 

[A Young Reefer]

Binding to organics and screwing up testing is one possibility. Binding and precipitating is another( @Randy Holmes-Farley wanna is this possible? ) Another is rapid bacterial uptake. I bet if you sent the results for an ICP test you would not see the falling nutrients but see they are still right there in the water.

I am very confident that nutrients DO drop, judging by the looks of my corals. every time I add that stuff to the tank all of my Euphyllia would shrivel up a bit for two whole days.
Not sure if there is something else that would trigger such reaction.

 

[MnFish1]

I am not sure why nutrients would drop - if the 'stuff' is killing algae that will cause an increase in nutrients Right? The change in coral could be a direct effect of the medication.

An ICP test would probably show the same results - since matter is neither created nor destroyed - But - I do not think an ICP test would help decide whether nutrients have increased or decreased.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Not sure if there is something else that would trigger such reaction.

Toxicity?

That said, I do not know what happens to nutrients when dosing algaefix or vibrant, or why.

 

[Dan_P]

My feeling at the moment is that you are charting the behavior in the "low organics" tank water case, and my measurements are relevant for the "high organics" case. Your results will be more relevant for more hobbyists. But there are some systems that will behave like mine.

OK, let’s leave it at high vs low DOC for a provisional explanation.

Are we sitting on an inexpensive method for estimating DOC?

 

[Dan_P]

yep. There's always wiggle room this measured material. I read an EPA doc that had a line saying even the most sophisticated techniques cannot possibly distinguish the bound polymer from the unbound (doc from '96 or so).

But the fact that Ulva water doesn't budge the measurement at all, while ulva tissue removes it almost completely makes me lean pretty heavily toward the idea that Dan's measurement is unbound. (I still think measurements of vibrant material in my water is in the bound form)

Can we get a recap of the evidence for polyquat binding to DOC in your system and that it can still be precipitated with SDS? I seem to have lost the plot

 

[Dan_P]

what's the best explanation for the sudden drop in nutrients after using vibrant?
even though it kills algae and as a result it should release nutrients into the water column.

I just started looking at mixed algae cultures and large doses of Vibrant. Large doses can change the rate at which these cultures can remove nitrate and phosphate from solution but nothing so far qualifies as a “sudden” drop.

I think we need to keep in mind that “sudden” is related to how often an aquarist measures nitrate and phosphate. This could be over a 1-4 week period.

I will share this data soon.

 

[taricha]

what's the best explanation for the sudden drop in nutrients after using vibrant?
even though it kills algae and as a result it should release nutrients into the water column.

I don't know that any of these qualify as a "good" explanation, but it's what I got.

I can think of four reasons, not of which I am sure of, for possible nutrient lowering effects from the polyquat (since carbon dose and direct PO4 binding aren't ones).

1. Placebo: as jeffww mentioned, some say PO4 went up. Also when you take the step to buy and use a product for an algae problem, you are probably in a frame of mind to care more about nutrients, and caring more about nutrients can make you do small things differently to cause them change. (I think the effect is larger than placebo - unlikely)

2. As a Flocculant, people report clearer water pretty regularly. The yellowing compounds in saltwater water are forms of DOM that are slow to break down, and these kinds have higher Carbon ratios. If the product is aggregating this stuff, then by making it more concentrated, it will probably be more digestible by bacteria than in the dilute dissolved form. (Read a paper on this mechanism by GAC just this week.) This would result in a high Carbon food source for bacteria - that could in turn help lower other nutrients.

3. The algae killed and damaged by the chemical should also be considered as to what the present nutrients are that are made available. I once took some GHA, did freeze/thaw to break up cells and discarded the liquid part, so basically just the husks of GHA and fed it to some bacteria. Most of the bacteria I fed it to lowered the N in the sample water, because the high C ratio of what was made available.

4. It's not impossible that the chemical interferes with test kits. This hasn't been shown to happen in aquarium concentrations, but it does happen at higher concentrations at least to the hanna PO4 test, and nobody has checked.

 

[MnFish1]

I don't know that any of these qualify as a "good" explanation, but it's what I got.

IMHO - they do not qualify. Because they are not controlled experiments. It shouldn't be hard to do. Have you guys noticed nutrients plummeting in your experiments?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMHO - they do not qualify. Because they are not controlled experiments. It shouldn't be hard to do. Have you guys noticed nutrients plummeting in your experiments?

He did not say they were experiments, he said they were possible explanations. A possible explanation of why something happened does not have to come with an experimental result that proves it.