My speculation: Vibrant has some fluconazole in it...

[Chrisv.]

So... Why does everyone care so much? It works wonders in my tank... I hesitate to even post on the subject because it seems like vibrant is a product people love to hate. I started using vibrant and my tanks have literally never been cleaner.

I am very interested in the rise of microbial additives in the reef hobby... mostly because when I started in the hobby (decades ago) they were total snake oil, and then like a year ago I revisited the products and wow, what a change. I'd love to learn about the science behind these products. My professional background is in molecular biology, and I have loved seeing so much from "work" make it's way into the hobby.

 

[UWC]

Post and whine? I generally stay out of these threads unless I see you post with your false claims.

 

[Cory]

The algacide was supposed to be eucalyptus

Evaluation of the use of eucalyptus to control algae bloom and improve water quality | Request PDF

Request PDF | On Feb 1, 2019, Wei Zhao and others published Evaluation of the use of eucalyptus to control algae bloom and improve water quality | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

 

[UWC]

So... Why does everyone care so much? It works wonders in my tank... I hesitate to even post on the subject because it seems like vibrant is a product people love to hate. I started using vibrant and my tanks have literally never been cleaner.

I am very interested in the rise of microbial additives in the reef hobby... mostly because when I started in the hobby (decades ago) they were total snake oil, and then like a year ago I revisited the products and wow, what a change. I'd love to learn about the science behind these products. My professional background is in molecular biology, and I have loved seeing so much from "work" make it's way into the hobby.

Thank you!

It’s amazing how things have changed. If people read our original post on Vibrant, we didn’t just come up with some wishy washy thing. This was created in conjunction with a science firm to solve a issue that we had as a custom aquarium company, years ago and ended up working so well that local club members started asking us what we did to our tanks. People started asking for samples, used it and were floored by the results.

 

[UWC]

The algacide was supposed to be eucalyptus

Evaluation of the use of eucalyptus to control algae bloom and improve water quality | Request PDF

Request PDF | On Feb 1, 2019, Wei Zhao and others published Evaluation of the use of eucalyptus to control algae bloom and improve water quality | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

There is no eucalyptus is Vibrant. Sure would smell good though

 

[Chrisv.]

Thank you!

It’s amazing how things have changed. If people read our original post on Vibrant, we didn’t just come up with some wishy washy thing. This was created in conjunction with a science firm to solve a issue that we had as a custom aquarium company, years ago and ended up working so well that local club members started asking us what we did to our tanks. People started asking for samples, used it and were floored by the results.

Thank YOU for the cool product!

Given how easy it would be for the competition to figure out the secret sauce -- (I can't believe it, but apparently now people are doing microbial metagenomics as a routine service for reef tanks!)-- why not just be more open about it and end this nonsense?

It's not like aquarists are going to start culturing the stuff... And the competition could figure it out in less than 24 hours.

It just seems like it would be worth it to put it all to rest. Then again all of this internet debate must be good advertising.

 

[Chrisv.]

Haha I take it back, let the debate continue, you can't pay for advertising that's this pervasive.

 

[Miami Reef]

I actually find this thread very intriguing.

 

[taricha]

a few of points on this topic that I'll share.
Regarding the actual thread title/premise, if vibrant isn't known to be effective against bryopsis, then that sort of shoots that particular idea down.

1) I cultured up Vibrant multiple times. Two separate bottles - one never opened before. I used two different foods: first, with LB broth (bacterial growth medium) mixed to 1.026 s.g. Instant ocean. Then later with different amounts of sterilized fish flake, again in instant ocean. I did this to 7 different hobby products sold for grunge-eating or consuming organics etc. I wanted to know if there were live culturable bacteria in each product that could be grown in saltwater. The water had to be fed to make the growth for these products easily detectable, so in rich saltwater at least - all these products grow bacteria. Here's another chart (different bottle, different food source than the one UWC posted - same result.)

2) So if you are wondering if vibrant contains viable bacteria, it does. So do all the other products. Can they grow with just tank water, or do they need a big food source? Hard measurement to make. I think some need a lot of help.

3) is the bacteria I cultured up from vibrant relevant? no idea. I didn't take the cultured up stuff and put it on any algae etc. Could there be an algicide in it, in addition to the bacteria? no idea.

4) maybe the bacteria generate their own algicidal compounds. There are quite a few such bacteria.

5) "send it to aquabiomics" I did. kinda. I sent a combined pool of seven cultured up bacterial products to aquabiomics. No smoking guns for algae killers. Most were only identified to a genus. Reading info on the genera of the detected bacteria don't tell you what you are looking for in this case.

6) If what you want to know is if the chemical media in vibrant kills the algae or if it's the action of bacteria you added from vibrant, then what you need to do the test is these: 0.22um syringe filters.
compare how well the vibrant filtered of all bacteria does vs unfiltered at killing algae. I don't know how it'll go.

 

[ScottB]

a few of points on this topic that I'll share.
Regarding the actual thread title/premise, if vibrant isn't known to be effective against bryopsis, then that sort of shoots that particular idea down.

1) I cultured up Vibrant multiple times. Two separate bottles - one never opened before. I used two different foods: first, with LB broth (bacterial growth medium) mixed to 1.026 s.g. Instant ocean. Then later with different amounts of sterilized fish flake, again in instant ocean. I did this to 7 different hobby products sold for grunge-eating or consuming organics etc. I wanted to know if there were live culturable bacteria in each product that could be grown in saltwater. The water had to be fed to make the growth for these products easily detectable, so in rich saltwater at least - all these products grow bacteria. Here's another chart (different bottle, different food source than the one UWC posted - same result.)

2) So if you are wondering if vibrant contains viable bacteria, it does. So do all the other products. Can they grow with just tank water, or do they need a big food source? Hard measurement to make. I think some need a lot of help.

3) is the bacteria I cultured up from vibrant relevant? no idea. I didn't take the cultured up stuff and put it on any algae etc. Could there be an algicide in it, in addition to the bacteria? no idea.

4) maybe the bacteria generate their own algicidal compounds. There are quite a few such bacteria.

5) "send it to aquabiomics" I did. kinda. I sent a combined pool of seven cultured up bacterial products to aquabiomics. No smoking guns for algae killers. Most were only identified to a genus. Reading info on the genera of the detected bacteria don't tell you what you are looking for in this case.

6) If what you want to know is if the chemical media in vibrant kills the algae or if it's the action of bacteria you added from vibrant, then what you need to do the test is these: 0.22um syringe filters.
compare how well the vibrant filtered of all bacteria does vs unfiltered at killing algae. I don't know how it'll go.

Of course I hate being told I am wrong, but since it is you, it is okay.

 

[taricha]

Of course I hate being told I am wrong, but since it is you, it is okay.

but wrong in a really interesing way! Which is almost as good as being right.
The observation that vibrant affects shaded algae less is interesting. And it's not just limited to fluconazole. H2O2 (and other oxidizers) also do greater damage during light. Low nutrient stress N, Fe ... (algae going yellow etc) is made worse by higher light. There are several different kinds of stress that are worse for algae under high-light conditions - light seems to exacerbate most of the stress conditions on photosynthetic stuff.

 

[ScottB]

but wrong in a really interesing way! Which is almost as good as being right.
The observation that vibrant affects shaded algae less is interesting. And it's not just limited to fluconazole. H2O2 (and other oxidizers) also do greater damage during light. Low nutrient stress N, Fe ... (algae going yellow etc) is made worse by higher light. There are several different kinds of stress that are worse for algae under high-light conditions - light seems to exacerbate most of the stress conditions on photosynthetic stuff.

4) maybe the bacteria generate their own algicidal compounds. There are quite a few such bacteria.

6) If what you want to know is if the chemical media in vibrant kills the algae or if it's the action of bacteria you added from vibrant, then what you need to do the test is these: 0.22um syringe filters.
compare how well the vibrant filtered of all bacteria does vs unfiltered at killing algae. I don't know how it'll go.

I guess it makes sense that the photoperiod is when stressors/oxidizers have a leveraged impact. Coral metabolic activity is high so good/bad conditions run faster. Same for fish really. Whenever people call an emergency (for good reason) my first response is "shut the lights" until you get things filtered out or otherwise back to nominal conditions. Goes for temperature, salinity, alkalinity, bacterial blooms, parasite blooms and even depleted nutrients for me.

Maybe akin to inducing a coma until you can get the basics back into a nominal state. Damage control.

*edit I also thought these two points (4&6) were quite intriguing and perhaps worthy of a separate thread some day.

 

[jeffww]

To identify the consortia in the vibrant youd have to just pellet the bacteria and do a pcr on 16s rRNA DNA and send for an ngs run. You could get data in days but an NGS run could cost 1-2000 dollars (last time I did one for work its probably cheaper now). I’m curious if the cultured bacteria are actually relevant from these products or if they result from contamination in their bottling/handling. In any case….I remain skeptical about whether a bottled pathogen of algae exists or if something else is happening. Maybe competition? Allelopathy? Syringe filtration seems like a good way to test as @taricha suggests.

 

[hart24601]

A test with syringe filters would be very interesting. I have used vibrant and it worked although hard on my sps, but did work well, but have always been curious if it was the active bacteria or if the bacteria were cultured before bottling and produced an algaecide that was bottled with them and was the effective part. Not that it really matters too much but I would imagine the bacterial products would make a better product for this purpose.

 

[jeffww]

But I would imagine at that point you would just isolate the natural product these bacteria make and become a multi-million dollar company cleaning up sludge in ponds/contaminated water. I don’t really think its likely at this point that whatever is in vibrant is related to the bacteria….at least directly.

A test with syringe filters would be very interesting. I have used vibrant and it worked although hard on my sps, but did work well, but have always been curious if it was the active bacteria or if the bacteria were cultured before bottling and produced an algaecide that was bottled with them and was the effective part. Not that it really matters too much but I would imagine the bacterial products would make a better product for this purpose.

 

[Haacheew]

I didn't see anything listed or mentioned about Reef Tanks with Refugium's and using Vibrant, I would assume it would kill off your Refugium, anybody know?

Vibrant did destroyed all my chatoes twice for my 2 years of using it. I forgot to pull it out before dosing. It was my fault, though.

 

[hart24601]

But I would imagine at that point you would just isolate the natural product these bacteria make and become a multi-million dollar company cleaning up sludge in ponds/contaminated water. I don’t really think its likely at this point that whatever is in vibrant is related to the bacteria….at least directly.

I don’t think it would be quite that lucrative or have an impact on sludge since vibrant is more for algae at least the effective impact we notice. I also think totally isolating the product would be more expensive than what it is now, but it’s a lot of speculation either way. Many years ago I was a microbiologist in vaccine development and many of our products were the bacterial extracts but to make them pure is expensive.

 

[taricha]

I'll go ahead and post this since we've attracted some sophisticated eyeballs that can appreciate interesting data even if it doesn't answer the questions.

Here's the aquabiomics list of sequenced microbes that I got back from culturing up 7 popular hobby bacterial additives for consuming organics (not nitrifiers). Vibrant was included, though I debated whether it even fit, but it cultured up and so I kept it in.

First, here's the culture-up data showing that there were nice cloudy samples of similar density from each product, so something that grew from each product bottle ought to have been well-sampled by the aquabiomics data.

And below is the aquabiomics data. I pooled the cloudy solutions that were grown from each bottle, mixed them and used that as the aquabiomics sample. They ran it as an unknown culture, just looking for all the strains detectable. (I sampled what grew from my aquarium sand/water in a separate test - there were zero organisms that overlapped between the cultured bottle products and the stuff from my aquarium.)

continued...

Some things here are what ought to be expected - lots of Bacillus. But there are other things that probably nobody is intending to be there. More diversity (27 strains) was cultured from the 7 bottles than I expected.

Does this confirm an algicidal bacteria in vibrant? nope. At least nothing that I see.
It it possible there's a relevant strain of bacteria from vibrant in this list? sure. it's possible. For instance multiple strains of Bacillus are not ID'd below the genus, and a quick google scholar search for bacillus algicide brings thousands of hits on known algicidal effects within that enormous genus.

(way outside my comfort zone here. Would welcome commentary from others.)

 

[Miami Reef]

@taricha We’ve established that vibrant has a bacteria that doesn’t reproduce in seawater.

I wonder if culturing vibrant in freshwater would yield a different bacteria strain?

 

[taricha]

@taricha We’ve established that vibrant has a bacteria that doesn’t reproduce in seawater

How so?
Are you talking about testing done by somebody else?
I grew stuff from vibrant bottles in Instant Ocean at 1.026 s.g. As long as enough food was added (fish flake or LB broth), I got response from each product.