Microbacter7 vs Dr. Tim's One and Only vs Vibrant

[Cv111]

So, I already cycled my tank a while back, but I just recently came across BRS' dry rock cycling video. They mention needing more than just the nitrifying bacteria to form biofilms that outcompete nuissance algae. It seems like Microbacter7 contains these things, but do similar options like Dr. Tim's One and Only do the same?

For my cycle I used both Dr. Tim's One and Only to start the cycle and Biospira as a boost when I added fish/for any possible biodiversity benefits. I'm currently dosing Vibrant to help with a small chrysophytes issue I have going on.

I'm wondering:

1) Is Microbacter7 overall better than Dr. Tim's/Biospira for biodiversity?

2) Does Vibrant contain a lot of the different bacteria that are present in Microbacter7, but not in Biospira/Dr. Tim's? I've read that Microbacter7 is unique because it has heterotrophic bacteria, which is supposedly what's in Vibrant, but I'm not sure if these are the same kinds of heterotrophic bacteria.

3) Is it worth dosing some Microbacter7 at some point to introduce additional diversity in the form of some of those algae competing films?

 

[tnw50cal]

Following--I use Microbacter7- a couple of drops after feeding.

 

[Reef-Tank]

I use MicrobacterClean works great!

 

[JustDewwit]

Can't say enough good about this stuff, I add a little also after feeding Reef Frenzy.

 

[lumbeejerk]

I use microbacter7

 

[Silent]

I like mb7, some people dose mb7 through a dosing pump.
Vibrant is completely different.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Well... hard to say. I did dose mb7 in my new tank and I do have multiple BTA doing well in a 1 month old tank... is it the bacteria, me, luck, or something else?

 

[LegendaryCG]

I also dosed biospira, used caribsea life rock and Caribsea live sand. It’s probably all Of these plus having a good idea how to run a reef tank.

 

[Bulk Reef Supply]

So, I already cycled my tank a while back, but I just recently came across BRS' dry rock cycling video. They mention needing more than just the nitrifying bacteria to form biofilms that outcompete nuissance algae. It seems like Microbacter7 contains these things, but do similar options like Dr. Tim's One and Only do the same?

For my cycle I used both Dr. Tim's One and Only to start the cycle and Biospira as a boost when I added fish/for any possible biodiversity benefits. I'm currently dosing Vibrant to help with a small chrysophytes issue I have going on.

I'm wondering:

1) Is Microbacter7 overall better than Dr. Tim's/Biospira for biodiversity?

2) Does Vibrant contain a lot of the different bacteria that are present in Microbacter7, but not in Biospira/Dr. Tim's? I've read that Microbacter7 is unique because it has heterotrophic bacteria, which is supposedly what's in Vibrant, but I'm not sure if these are the same kinds of heterotrophic bacteria.

3) Is it worth dosing some Microbacter7 at some point to introduce additional diversity in the form of some of those algae competing films?

The issue with comparing bacterial products is that the manufacturers list a "proprietary blend of bacteria" as the ingredients in most cases. There is a certain element of trust with the specific manufacturer when it comes to bacteria. I'd say that if you're comparing Vibrant to an equivalent Brightwell product, you're probably best off comparing it to MicroBacter Clean.

As far as cycling a tank goes, we have the most experience using Dr. Tim's products. If you've seen any of his MACNA talks (we have them on our YouTube channel if you haven't), you know that Dr. Tim Hovanec is an industry expert on the topic of bacteria. I think anyone would be hard pressed not to use his products after the knowledge that he demonstrates in his presentations. I've yet to see any other company or company representative be so open about teaching the reefing community on this particular topic.

All of that said, we're going to be doing a BRStv Investigates in the near future comparing tank cycle times between the various bacterial products. While it won't tell us things like exact types of bacteria used in each product, it'll be a good insight into which products work best for getting a tank up and running the quickest and which have the correct bacteria strains for the job at hand.

 

[Cv111]

The issue with comparing bacterial products is that the manufacturers list a "proprietary blend of bacteria" as the ingredients in most cases. There is a certain element of trust with the specific manufacturer when it comes to bacteria. I'd say that if you're comparing Vibrant to an equivalent Brightwell product, you're probably best off comparing it to MicroBacter Clean.

As far as cycling a tank goes, we have the most experience using Dr. Tim's products. If you've seen any of his MACNA talks (we have them on our YouTube channel if you haven't), you know that Dr. Tim Hovanec is an industry expert on the topic of bacteria. I think anyone would be hard pressed not to use his products after the knowledge that he demonstrates in his presentations. I've yet to see any other company or company representative be so open about teaching the reefing community on this particular topic.

All of that said, we're going to be doing a BRStv Investigates in the near future comparing tank cycle times between the various bacterial products. While it won't tell us things like exact types of bacteria used in each product, it'll be a good insight into which products work best for getting a tank up and running the quickest and which have the correct bacteria strains for the job at hand.

I used to work in a freshwater metagenomics lab where we sequenced environmental samples to identify the bacteria and viruses present in the environment (like 7 years ago at this point). I'm more in the realm of human viruses now and would consider myself a virologist than a catch-all microbiologist (no more bacteria) at this point, so I'm by no means an expert on the topic.

BUT if you guys want to get fancy, you could try having the raw products or samples from the water column and rockwork/substrate sequenced to shine light on the differences between these products via either shotgun sequencing or 16S sequencing. I haven't done this in a while, but based on my experience with similar technology now, it could easily be under $1000 total depending on how many sample you wanted to send out.

I've used company called BGI for RNA sequencing several times in my current research, they offer some really good deals for that and are full service (you give them an unprocessed sample, so you don't need a tube) It looks like they have a metagenomic offering too that might be cheaper.

Metagenomic Sequencing - Fast, Accurate - BGI Americas, NGS

BGI Americas’ metagenomic sequencing applies whole genome shotgun sequencing of DNA isolated from environmental samples, with high throughput and high coverage.

www.bgi.com

or

16S/18S/ITS Sequencing - Fast, Accurate - BGI Americas, NGS

16S/18S/ITS sequencing is widely used in taxonomy and molecular phylogeny. BGI has extensive experience providing affordable 16S/18S/ITS Sequencing services.

www.bgi.com

16S will give bacteria taxoonomy and abundance
18s will give eukaryotic taxonomy and abundance
^Best for high complexity samples (we used this and were working with thousands of taxa)

Shotgun sequencing will give the above, but can also pull out some specific bacterial/eukaryotic genes (for instance, if there are genes for nitrate reductase) and any DNA viruses (will not sequence RNA based viruses)
^You'll get more information about each individual organism/strain the less complex the sample is, aka the less types of bacteria that are present. For bottle bacteria, this is likely to be the better option unless it's much more expensive^

There are a few others listed on on Google if you search for "metagenomic sequencing service" as well:

https://www.cd-genomics.com/Metagenomic-Shotgun-Sequencing.html (they say the offer 16s/18s as well)

Metagenome Sequencing Service

Thanks to metagenomics and the ability to target all microorganisms living in a specific environment, scientists are gaining a better understanding of ecology, evolution, diversity, and functions of the microbial universe.

www.mrdnalab.com

Shotgun Metagenomic Sequencing

Shotgun metagenomic sequencing uses NGS technology to provide information on the taxonomic annotations of each organism, functional profiling, gene prediction and microbial interaction of the whole community.

en.novogene.com

Microbial Sequencing

From studying the human microbiome via shotgun metagenomics to identifying a particular virus by employing RNA-seq techniques, MR DNA takes great pride in offering our customers access to the most current NGS platforms as well as a staff that is knowledgeable regarding the library preparation...

www.mrdnalab.com

If you consider doing something like this and need help understanding the technology or analyzing & interpreting the data, I have experience and can lend my aid! I can direct you to one of my papers to confirm I actually know some stuff about this if it seems feasible to do for a video.

 

[Cv111]

I did a little more digging and found shallow shotgun sequencing can run around $100/sample. To compare what is exactly in the bottles, it's likely to be more than sufficient to get both species and strain level comparisons between products. BGI is usually the cheapest out there, so they might even be cheaper than that. I sent them an email inquiring just cause I'm curious if it would ever be feasible, even if BRS doesn't like my crazy idea.

 

[Cv111]

Okay, so I've done more digging online and found some videos and microscopy on Reef Central for Vibrant. They were unable to make an ID, but I think I am better positioned to try.

Based on that it seems to have some filamentous bacteria in it. All common in activated sludge systems....basically oxygenated sewage. Probably what would thrive in a skimmer environment. It's impossible for me to make an exact ID based on appearance alone without some additional tests, but they did have gram staining which is helpful. I think there is nocardia spp. and type 1701 filamentous bacteria in it for sure. These are actually the two most common seen in activated sludge systems. Not sure if would explain the exact results people report with vibrant, unless it also has an algicide in it? At least some Nocardia spp. produce surfactants that I clould see dislodginy some types of film algae, but not things with holdfasts.

Of slight concern some nocardia can cause infection in humans and at least anecdotally in fish, but I have nothing to strongly suggest bacteria in Vibrant could do so. Even if the species were correct I'd imagine most healthy fish would avoid infection unless you really overdosed it.

This is still only a bit better than speculation based on insufficient data. I think there are probably other species in it that I can't guess at without better data.

Will try to see if there are similar images out there for other products.

 

[nano reef]

The issue with comparing bacterial products is that the manufacturers list a "proprietary blend of bacteria" as the ingredients in most cases. There is a certain element of trust with the specific manufacturer when it comes to bacteria. I'd say that if you're comparing Vibrant to an equivalent Brightwell product, you're probably best off comparing it to MicroBacter Clean.

As far as cycling a tank goes, we have the most experience using Dr. Tim's products. If you've seen any of his MACNA talks (we have them on our YouTube channel if you haven't), you know that Dr. Tim Hovanec is an industry expert on the topic of bacteria. I think anyone would be hard pressed not to use his products after the knowledge that he demonstrates in his presentations. I've yet to see any other company or company representative be so open about teaching the reefing community on this particular topic.

All of that said, we're going to be doing a BRStv Investigates in the near future comparing tank cycle times between the various bacterial products. While it won't tell us things like exact types of bacteria used in each product, it'll be a good insight into which products work best for getting a tank up and running the quickest and which have the correct bacteria strains for the job at hand.

I cant wait to see that! That is going to be super interesting. I dosed microbacter clean(as per your advice) after my tanks cycled and seem to help with film algae maybe a little. Not sure since its a new tank but I do know that after I quit using it my nitrates shot up!

 

[Chrisv.]

Okay, so I've done more digging online and found some videos and microscopy on Reef Central for Vibrant. They were unable to make an ID, but I think I am better positioned to try.

Based on that it seems to have some filamentous bacteria in it. All common in activated sludge systems....basically oxygenated sewage. Probably what would thrive in a skimmer environment. It's impossible for me to make an exact ID based on appearance alone without some additional tests, but they did have gram staining which is helpful. I think there is nocardia spp. and type 1701 filamentous bacteria in it for sure. These are actually the two most common seen in activated sludge systems. Not sure if would explain the exact results people report with vibrant, unless it also has an algicide in it? At least some Nocardia spp. produce surfactants that I clould see dislodginy some types of film algae, but not things with holdfasts.

Of slight concern some nocardia can cause infection in humans and at least anecdotally in fish, but I have nothing to strongly suggest bacteria in Vibrant could do so. Even if the species were correct I'd imagine most healthy fish would avoid infection unless you really overdosed it.

This is still only a bit better than speculation based on insufficient data. I think there are probably other species in it that I can't guess at without better data.

Will try to see if there are similar images out there for other products.

Did you ever toss this on a miseq to see what's in it?

 

[fachatga]

I’ve had great results with microbacter clean. Used it for 2 weeks. Things just started looking better and better in my tank every day. Not a one dose and it’s done kind of product. But I love it. Now I use a little every 5-7 days. Phasing it out as coraline starts to take hold.

 

[Cv111]

Did you ever toss this on a miseq to see what's in it?

No, in the end I decided it wasn't worth my own money lol.

 

[nano reef]

I just placed an order on the phone with brs and I talked to cody a reefing expert. I asked him why they dont carry Vibrant yet they recomended it highly in youtubes. Both that and mb clean after cycling a tank. His answer was they quit carrying it after they did studys and found out all it is an algaeside and compared it to api algafix or something like that! They also said it has zero bacteria in it! Saltwater aquarium no longer carries it either and brs said it could be detrimental to corals! i dont think I ever had problems but have had some losses in the past and now makes me wonder!

I have one tank with alage and other one with none yet treat both tanks the same! I believe its my leds that go through a yellowish stage from the warm white. Anyway, i have noticed it loosened the aglae and makes it easy to scrub off! I am going to start using microbacter clean instead! It sucks finding this out because its so much cheaper! I used to think it was expensive until I checked the difference in dosing! One cap for my 20 and 2 for my 46! Where as dr tims waste away and mb clean is a lot more I think 3 times as much!

I have been using MB7 for years and someone mentioned after feeding corals so I think that will be the time I dose from here on out!

I used to dose mb7 and vibrant both quite a bit when I had dinos and I noticed since I quit I have coraline taking over like crazy!