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

[DrZoidburg]

green

Mixture of two indicators, again think color wheel. Your other vials don't look far off from picture I linked with just MO vs ph. If you hit this just right it will show green, and can go back. This is not a reaction with the indicators. It is merely a charged state of the indicator bending the molecule and changing the energy. This is why we see color change in this case.

MO and BPB are in the basic forms

Things that usually have a hydrogen are acids, or a compound that is more electronegative. Its actually complicated. Like when you say way way earlier bpb " it is changing to its acid form" It was likely already acidic, but the aspartic acid was changing charges. Polyquaternium-42 or 60 is basic. "Basic form indicators" like you say would not change colors if what you said was true. They would be the color of their neutral forms, or the color of positive/negative charge form. PH dependent of course.
1: I only ever said I think these are not in there.
2: Why do you avoid answering some questions?
3: I am only pointing out what you have done is not a conclusion of anything, but you are so stuck to it I don't know what to tell you.
4: Thank you @UWC I am not trying to defend you, I think you can manage. It seems you are confident it is not in there.

 

[mojo8427]

We're still here. It's actually been kind of fun to watch them try and figure out what they think is in Vibrant. Just been sitting back and observing without interjecting. Eventually I'll tell you all exactly why you are getting the quat response on these tests, including how Vibrant is actually mixed up and bottled

Eventually? What are you waiting for?

From the outside looking in, your comments in this thread seem intentionally ambiguous, almost passive aggressive.

 

[nereefpat]

My elementary understanding of quats is that they are always positively charged by definition (quaternary ammonium cation), regardless of pH. They also don't react to to acids or bases or oxidants or high temperatures. I don't understand the talk of changing of charge or form or pH here. I don't have chemistry education beyond a bachelor's degree, however.

 

[Midrats]

Dose eight is supposed to go in today. I've been doing weekly doses, and while my stubborn Valonia is still growing, it seems to be weakening. Everything has looked good thus far, but now I'm starting to see coralline dying. I think it may be time to discontinue using it and switch over to the original substance of suspicion: Fluconazole.

 

[a.t.t.r]

Showed this thread to several LFS in the area and they are pulling this off the shelf.

 

[JCOLE]

Dose eight is supposed to go in today. I've been doing weekly doses, and while my stubborn Valonia is still growing, it seems to be weakening. Everything has looked good thus far, but now I'm starting to see coralline dying. I think it may be time to discontinue using it and switch over to the original substance of suspicion: Fluconazole.

I would stop ASAP. Not to worry you but this is what happened to me right before I lost a bunch of my Acro's. It took about 2 months for my bubble algae to turn white/grey. At that time I noticed my Coralline algae receding, turning white and dying off as well. Within a week or so after this, I literally watched what I would call the life getting sucked out of my SPS. They lost their color and within a couple of days, the majority had RTN/STN. What really stung is after I lost the Acro's then a month or so later my bubble algae came back! I vowed never to use the stuff again and fast forward a year later, my tank is thriving now that I have used all natural remedies for algae. Clean up crew and utility fish do wonders.

This is what happened right after my coralline started to fade. These pieces were very colorful and happy a week prior to the coralline dying. You can see in the picture where the Coralline is turning white where it used to be all pink and purple.

 

[JCOLE]

I would also give it some time before dosing Fluconazole just in case.

 

[Midrats]

I would also give it some time before dosing Fluconazole just in case.

No, thank you for worrying me! I appreciate the warning. Sorry for your loss. I will hold off on the fluc and I'm going to do some h20 changes. Your bubble infestation looked about how mine is. I've tried nutrient reduction, manual removal, emeralds, and urchins. The tank is 50g so a tang or foxface isn't really an option, unless I plan to re-home it, hence why I resorted to Vibrant. I knew it was too good to be true.

 

[DrZoidburg]

I don't understand the talk of changing of charge or form or pH

Not the polyquat in question (pq-42). It is positive. However the dyes, and amino acids do change charge states vs ph. When I say form in response I mean positive, negative, or neutral charge states. Not like a structural change.

 

[taricha]

(This post is not new info, just ruling out Aspartic Acid - more thoroughly - as a possible source of a "quat" response)
@DrZoidburg you've mentioned Aspartic acid a few times as a possibly confounding ingredient. (Not clear to me if you are saying it's generating the "quat" response in vibrant or not). But I thought I'd check anyway, even though it's not in AlgaeFix and couldn't plausibly explain the precise similarity in the "quat" response between AlgaeFix and Vibrant.

Left is unbuffered aspartic acid, and right graph is pH-corrected to ~6.2 to match the pH conditions in Vibrant. Concentrations were tested from levels of <1/10 to over 10x of what gave "quat" responses with Vibrant. To go to the highest concentrations I had to add enough Aspartic acid solution that it diluted the absorbance down.


In the left graph you can see both Methyl Orange and Bromphenol Blue just shift from basic color form to their low pH color form. This is opposite direction of the quat response. If you control the pH to 6.2, then no shifts occur at all.

Neither could be confused for the quat response, so Aspartic acid isn't the source of the "quat" response in vibrant.

 

[shwareefer]

Based on the skepticism regarding ingredients expressed in this thread already, why accept that any of the listed ingredients, including aspartic acid, are actually there?

 

[taricha]

Based on the skepticism regarding ingredients expressed in this thread already, why accept that any of the listed ingredients, including aspartic acid, are actually there?

Right. I haven't actually seen anything to say that aspartic acid or vinegar is (or isn't) actually in Vibrant. It could be, I just haven't looked for it. So I'll say it may be for testing purposes, but they couldn't account for the quat response anyway.

 

[jda]

I would not feed the trolls too much... unable to see that the same behavior from a known quat, BMP test is admissible in court as a reliable way to determine quat (just a quick search on this) and the fact that LaMotte are not fools are at least level 1 troll activity, if not more. There is at least some amount of denial or just homerism going on here.

 

[DrZoidburg]

@taricha

At higher pH, the peak is ~464nm, and at lower pH the peak shifts to the right, to 500nm+.

Is what you said about MO.

At high pH, the peak is ~591nm and at lower pH the peak shifts to the left, to <450nm.

Is what you said about BPB.
I inked this so you can see better. I have labeled where the peak is. If you take away the ink you can observe a small shift to the left in bpb. It is hard to see but can. Crudely estimated with a straight edge. More pronounced in MO. Why are the no other charts for vibrant, or just aspartic acid like picture of just algaefix curves attatched? I am not convinced a small shift of about 5 nanometers indicates anything. If you had some in the uv or ir range maybe. The research paper uses advanced tools and gets a small shift of maybe1-3 nm (just dyes), but a hobby grade one is getting a shift of about 5+ nanometers.(mixture of things) Notice also your peaks are opposite of research paper. It makes sense you have a shift the opposite way.

Your misinterpreting the research paper, and using it the wrong way. The color lines are representing the different ph levels. The points where they intersect do not represent high or low ph. This shows absorption properties only of the dyes, not all things combined. Also if you notice they are not all in line there is some difference in research paper. Take brown vs black (not inked) for example because they are easier to see for MO. Brown peak is about 500 nm, black is about 510nm. A difference in ph of about 2.22 is a small shift. Does not indicate anything here. How coincidental that it looks similar to your first test curves after you buffer it to ph 6.2. About 460, and 580 nm peaks, and a depression at about 540nm. Almost the same as Algaefix page 16. (attatched) But this latest chart it is neither of these additives and has about the same peaks? Basically what I'm saying is just because the dye has very little shift vs ph, doesn't mean when you have other chemicals influencing it that you can say the same. Here I link picture from same research paper. MO vs ph (b) you see I circled the dominant spectrum, and how it goes opposite at points. This one actually uses different colors and not color coded lines.

 

[vtecintegra]

18 pages and the company, who is present, hasn't stepped up to elaborate on their product to clear up the debate. That tells me all I need to know. Don't need or care what's in it at this point. I wouldn't use it if it was free.

 

[a.t.t.r]

18 pages and the company, who is present, hasn't stepped up to elaborate on their product to clear up the debate. That tells me all I need to know. Don't need or care what's in it at this point. I wouldn't use it if it was free.

Not only present. But here.

 

[taricha]

I inked this so you can see better

Spot your fatal flaw in this first, then review your argument, then decide if you still need more data from me.

 

[jcolliii]

18 pages and the company, who is present, hasn't stepped up to elaborate on their product to clear up the debate. That tells me all I need to know. Don't need or care what's in it at this point. I wouldn't use it if it was free.

I threw mine out last week. Great thread.

 

[Midrats]

A video of me dumping my bottle into the toilet is forthcoming.

 

[DanTheReefer]

I threw mine out last week. Great thread.

The secrecy is really annoying… that said, I used to have a lot of bubble algae and now I don’t- and didn’t lose any inverts. I’ll still keep using as needed