I want them to comment so they can dig their hole deeper. I’m guessing they have been instructed to shut up by their lawyer lol.
It is not up to me to research and 'prove' that your conclusions are correct. It's up to you to convince the rest of us. IMHO - Go ahead - defend your results. Prove - that the only thing that can change bromphenol blue from blue to purple is QAC - then on top of that go ahead and prove that No bacteria is in vibrant. LOL - you're making wild claims - with no proof. I told you the microbiologic way to do it - so go ahead - do it. But - your experiment here - is conjecture - based on what 'could be' - and you may very well be right - but I'm not going to waste my time figuring out how your experiments do not show that the big bad bogey-man aquarium product salesman is 'lying'. You can go ahead - keep doing it. There are numerous reasons - already said - that suggest there is more to vibrant than a 'QAC'. Stop quoting your bromphenol blue experiment and respond to the other comments?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?
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.
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.
Really? According to my reading of the ingredients - it says:
Where do you see that? The bottle I just bought is 3.5 percent other or do you mean the cultured blend part of it? It is not mentioned anywhere else and cultured bacteria blend could be anything hell it could be just tank water.
... 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.
Great. What was the question you asked?You know what is a lot easier and would put an end to all of this? Is if @UWC would just "prove" that @taricha conclusions are incorrect. Because as of right now @taricha conclusions look pretty valid and all I hear so far is crickets from the company.
I lost thousands of dollars in Acros a year ago because of Vibrant and would love to know what's in it to cause that. I have used many "bacteria" supplements and never had a single issue from using them except for when I used Vibrant.
I received a message from the company this morning and they said they will explain whats in it. I hope this is the case. Not just for what happened to me, but for anyone else in the future that wants to dose it in an Acropora dominate system.
You probably missed it - this was discussed at length a couple pages ago. In any case - there is no EPA paperwork that I can find that suggests Vibrant has QAC (at least in the concentration of algaefix (but its available for algaefix and multiple other products)) - no where on the bottle does it say there is a QAC in vibrant. On the website - it clearly states 3.5% RODI water.
There are bacteria that can survive boiling water, live in Betadine antiseptic solution, etc. - 1. We don't even know the concentration (if any of QAC). 2. I believe that if this was present the company would be required to file with the EPA (the same as Algaefix does).
This is very interesting - I did not see it! Thanks for doing that experimenta 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.
No -
EDITED - NO - the "real science" - that was posted by @taricha- was completely correct.. Though I wish (PM me) - I knew if he dried all of the specimens first
I did not see the centrifugation experiments - but - I know - from direct culture experiments - depending on the bacteria - you can centrifuge a liter of cloudy fluid - and come back with a very small sized piece. Granted this was with E coli - which an extremely fast doubling time. I would suggest that we 'wait' for answers from the company..?
