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

[ScottB]

The universe is big and has many chemicals.
The far more relevant question is the much narrower one:
What is in vibrant that gets detected as an algacide, in amounts roughly similar to the algacide in Algaefix, and is not found in any of the dozen other bacterial products that have been checked.

Reads like an Occam's Razor question to me.

Why don't any of the other "bacteria" products react to the bromophenol blue test? Why only Vibrant and AlgaeFix react this way? Would any of the individual ingredients of Vibrant trigger the test? It is a pretty short list that does not compare to the AlgaeFix list all that much.

Why isn't the simplest answer probably the right one?

 

[Dan_P]

The universe is big and has many chemicals.
The far more relevant question is the much narrower one:
What is in vibrant that gets detected as an algacide, in amounts roughly similar to the algacide in Algaefix, and is not found in any of the dozen other bacterial products that have been checked.

We discussed the rapid clarification claims of Vibrant happening faster than bacteria growth. Flocculation and clarification were terms tossed around in that discussion. I briefly looked around for organic flocculants, searching for cationic examples that we could test with bromophenol, but no Joy.

 

[MnFish1]

It's odd to describe the ingredients precisely in another venue and not describe exactly one of those ingredients on the actual product label. But speculating why that might've been done is probably not a productive road.
Regardless, there's no description of ingredients in Vibrant in any forum or venue that could account for the apparent detection of quat. It is surprising.


Much more accurate to describe this data from dilutions as showing that the polyquat in AlgaeFix is above 300x (but below 1000x) the limit of detection for this bromophenol blue test.
And similarly, the detected chemical in Vibrant is also above 300x (but below 1000x) the limit of detection for this test.


Like what? What have you seen to base that on? What else might be in a bacterial product that generates that purple to blue change?

I can't find the data where I saw it - I was looking up the chemistry of bromphenol blue. I have no idea what would be in a bacterial product that would relate to that change.

Except the huge vibrant thread is full of people dosing every 3 days ("2x per week") including this being recommended by UWC in many cases.
check these search results for about ~150+ examples.

Yep - I know you can use higher doses. You can also use higher doses of Algaefix. The point was the initial starting dose of vibrant is 1/2 that of algae fix - and the dosing INTERVAL recommended is totally different.

The universe is big and has many chemicals.
The far more relevant question is the much narrower one:
What is in vibrant that gets detected as an algacide, in amounts roughly similar to the algacide in Algaefix, and is not found in any of the dozen other bacterial products that have been checked.

I think I already answered this - there is probably 'something' similar/identical in vibrant and Algaefix. At least thats what your testing shows. I do not think it's clear (to me) - that the concentrations are 'the same'.

The other question is 'Does vibrant have bacteria'. That has not been answered or discussed (much).

I also wonder how (if the chemicals are identical) Vibrant does not have (as far as I can see) an EPA permit for the QAC. There are probably 25 or more products using that chemical for various reasons - including Algaefix - that have registered with the FDA. Unless they are using a different name - I do not see that with vibrant. They dont list it as an ingredient - which I Believe (I'm not a lawyer) is required?

 

[MnFish1]

Reads like an Occam's Razor question to me.

Why don't any of the other "bacteria" products react to the bromophenol blue test? Why only Vibrant and AlgaeFix react this way? Would any of the individual ingredients of Vibrant trigger the test? It is a pretty short list that does not compare to the AlgaeFix list all that much.

Why isn't the simplest answer probably the right one?

Because - IMHO, its not the 'simplest answer' (although I'll fully admit it could be part or all of the answer). Algaefix has one ingredient. Vibrant does not list that ingredient (which I believe would be against regulation - but again I'm not a lawyer). Instead vibrant lists bacteria. Bacteria can decrease/eliminate algae (I provided a couple links). So - no one has proven that vibrant does NOT have bacteria. All that has been proven is that in an evaporated sample - that each substance has a chemical that reacts with bromphenol blue in a manner consistent with QAC - and we know that 1 product contains QAC. This test does not easily mean/prove or suggest that the concentration, etc is the same.

I am not sure that whether other bacterial products reacting or not reacting to bromphenol blue is a positive or negative.

By the way - I'm still wrapping my head around whether bacteria and QAC would/could survive together.

 

[taricha]

I also think that certain tests being produced here are being interpreted as a nail in the coffin and being taken by some as if it is 100% indicative of the manufacturer hiding an algaecide. It has in no way been definitively proven that it contains a qac.

Good thoughts. Nobody is claiming "proof" and to be clear, I'm not aiming to prove anything. I have neither the skill nor the resources to produce a complicated chemical out of a mix, and point to it to say "there it is" with any real certainty.

People use vibrant, it kills algae, but nobody knows how. ("bacteria" is not an answer )

So the question is really "What is the likely mechanism for vibrant to kill algae? And how should we use vibrant based on that?"
The detection of something that looks a lot like an algacide, and in amounts that look similar to a known effective algacide, and the complete absence of any similar detected chemical in any bacterial product points us to a pretty clear answer for how vibrant is most likely to work at killing algae.

 

[taricha]

and the dosing INTERVAL recommended is totally different.

"2x per week" that UWC often recommends for vibrant is certainly not significantly different from "every 3 days" that AlgaeFix says.

 

[FEED ME ZOAS]

Good thoughts. Nobody is claiming "proof" and to be clear, I'm not aiming to prove anything. I have neither the skill nor the resources to produce a complicated chemical out of a mix, and point to it to say "there it is" with any real certainty.

People use vibrant, it kills algae, but nobody knows how. ("bacteria" is not an answer )

So the question is really "What is the likely mechanism for vibrant to kill algae? And how should we use vibrant based on that?"
The detection of something that looks a lot like an algacide, and in amounts that look similar to a known effective algacide, and the complete absence of any similar detected chemical in any bacterial product points us to a pretty clear answer for how vibrant is most likely to work at killing algae.

I agree with most all of this. I'm here out of curiosity and intrigue, as it seems you are. I agree that it does seem like a relatively likely possibility that the same or a similar aglaecide is present. I think it is the most likely possibility we've found as of yet.

For those here who are more well versed in biochemistry than myself, is it possible that whatever is reacting is something of bacterial origin? Further, is it possible for something like a qac or something related to be synthesized biologically?

 

[fluked]

Here's my anecdotal experience, i dosed vibrant using the heavy dose for about 3-4 months which never touched my gha, 2 weeks of dosing actual fluconazole (1/2 dose) completely wiped the gha. Whatever was in vibrant didn't work for me

 

[MnFish1]

"2x per week" that UWC often recommends for vibrant is certainly not significantly different from "every 3 days" that AlgaeFix says.

I would appreciate if you would READ what I wrote.

Which is that the initial dose for the 2 products is different. No more no less. It makes zero sense to me WHY Vibrant would recommend 1x/week and Algaefix every 3 days as a starting (initial doses) - why would Vibrant not just say 'use it every 3 days' - they would sell more product from the start - right?

 

[DrZoidburg]

Going to read more.

 

[ScottB]

Here's my anecdotal experience, i dosed vibrant using the heavy dose for about 3-4 months which never touched my gha, 2 weeks of dosing actual fluconazole (1/2 dose) completely wiped the gha. Whatever was in vibrant didn't work for me

Is there any chance at all that your GHA was bryopsis instead? The whole premise of my speculation was about fluconazole which is VERY effective at killing bryopsis. But "whatever" is in Vibrant has never been recommended for bryopsis. So I was wrong.

Did your GHA look like this? https://www.hawaii.edu/reefalgae/invasive_algae/chloro/bryop_pen.jpg

Bryopsis and healthy GHA have a common look.

 

[fluked]

Is there any chance at all that your GHA was bryopsis instead? The whole premise of my speculation was about fluconazole which is VERY effective at killing bryopsis. But "whatever" is in Vibrant has never been recommended for bryopsis. So I was wrong.

Did your GHA look like this? https://www.hawaii.edu/reefalgae/invasive_algae/chloro/bryop_pen.jpg

Bryopsis and healthy GHA have a common look.

Here's some old photos of it.
I don't believe it's bryopsis.
The late photo is algae that was sucked out during a wc, looks very brown, but under proper white light it goes green.
What do you think?

 

[ScottB]

Here's some old photos of it.
I don't believe it's bryopsis.
The late photo is algae that was sucked out during a wc, looks very brown, but under proper white light it goes green.
What do you think?

Hmm. Looks more like GHA at least from the pics. Bryopsis has an almost fern looking structure.

 

[taricha]

I got my hands on some quaternary ammonium test strips to try to get some sort of quantification of the amount of detectable substance in Vibrant and compare that to the known quat in AlgaeFix.
The strips are fairly terrible. They apperently need soft water, pH 2-4, and even then the color seems unresponsive above 200ppm, and the color card is calibrated for a particular sanitizer product that I'm not smart enough to convert to ppm of the known chemical in AlgaeFix. All those limitations aside, this might be mildly interesting.

These are dilutions of AlgaeFix and vibrant in distilled water with a little pH 4 buffer.
dilutions of zero, 1/3000, 1/1000, 1/300, 1/100, 1/30 and 1/10 were done.

Eyeballs and color charts are a pretty painful combination, so I took RGB pixel values from the above pictures to try to extract a little more information. (I did R/B for the test strips and color charts, and calculated a comparison)

A few points:
1) detection of the chemicals at 1/1000 and probably even as low as 1/3000 dilutions of both algaefix and vibrant seem to have been picked up by the strips.
2) there is no detectable difference between the response of the test strips to Vibrant vs Algaefix. Of course, it's possible these could be chemicals with different reactivities to the test present in coincidentally different amounts to show up as identical response in the color strip.
3) strips became unresponsive to progressively higher concentrations.
4) determining actual numerical concentration (ppm of Quat) from these strips is not possible.
5) This is a different mechanism than the bromophenol blue dried residue tests I posted earlier, but the results are consistent.
6) I tried a couple of other bacterial products against the strips but the strips did not respond to those at all. (same as bromophenol blue)

 

[jeffww]

with two separate methodologies in agreement, I think it’s pretty safe to say that vibrant is nothing more than polyquat masquerading as a bacterial additive.

 

[Dan_P]

with two separate methodologies in agreement, I think it’s pretty safe to say that vibrant is nothing more than polyquat masquerading as a bacterial additive.

I think @taricha was able to coax bacteria growth from Vibrant though I wonder whether Algafix couldn’t be coaxed to grow bacteria.

 

[Miami Reef]

I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable adding an unknown chemical to my tank.

I had a feeling there was something up. Let me get a quote.

 

[Miami Reef]

This is highly speculative, but look at these quotes from this thread:

And because of the title of the thread, I will say, there is no Fluco in Vibrant

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

Why couldn’t they just say “there’s no chemicals in vibrant”.

All they’re doing is denying the single chemicals, but they aren’t denying the fact that there’s something else in there.

 

[taricha]

I think @taricha was able to coax bacteria growth from Vibrant though I wonder whether Algafix couldn’t be coaxed to grow bacteria.

Right, I've been thinking about that a bunch. I had growth in the cultures inoculated with vibrant multiple times from different bottles of vibrant with different foods.
(The fact that Vibrant is unique among hobby bacterial products in that centrifuging it generates no pellet, made this result surprising for me, but it was consistent.)
It would be easy to assume I just screwed up the sterilizations, but maybe microbes (intentional or not, relevant or not) were present in the bottle that could grow once the product was diluted and added to food. Once diluted in seawater, obviously even an AlgaeFix level of polyquat is no longer an effective antibacterial agent.

Why couldn’t they just say “there’s no chemicals in vibrant”.

All they’re doing is denying the single chemicals, but they aren’t denying the fact that there’s something else in there.

There's many chemicals in every bacterial product: acids, preservatives etc etc. In a lot of cases, the media in the bottles may have more effect on your system than the bacteria that comes out of the bottles.

Just as a thought:
There's a preference for people to think that a strain of bacteria are going into their tank, finding vulnerable algae, multiplying and killing that algae. They'd rather not think that a chemical is effective against algae and you add X amount of the chemical and sensitive algae dies, and you have to add more or longer to get less sensitive species.
But scenario A is really a picture of an unpredictable roller coaster, under that scenario - the bacteria can multiply in the system and do whatever they want to whatever food is their preference.
Scenario B is precisely controlled by the amount of chemical you add.

The bacterial hypothesis doesn't even seem more attractive to me, but I suppose product sales in the hobby confirm my opinion is a minority view.

 

[homer1475]

My only question.....

Why is this in the SPS subforum, and not in general, or the chem section?