Pressure on False Claim Products

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Let's see if we can help clean up the reef supply world by getting vendors to drop false claim products.

let's start here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brightwell-boost-ph.1022375/
From it, in the Premium Aquatics vendor forum:

I'd like to suggest that you drop the Brightwell product Boost pH+ from your product line since it is misleading consumers about what it can do.

Clearly, it cannot do what you (on your web site) and they claim.

https://premiumaquatics.com/products/brightwell-aquatics-boost-ph-250ml.html
"High Range pH Increaser deals with excess CO2, raises pH only without increasing alkalinity or calcium (in tanks already having a proper dKH)"

"Warning: Contains caustic sodium and potassium hydroxides;"

So, the product contains hydroxide (the actual active ingredient), and yet does not increase alkalinity.

That is, of course, simply not true, as folks supplementing calcium and alkalinity using kalkwasser can attest.

Hydroxide instantly boosts alkalinity.

Please either drop this product, or have Brightwell change their label and their advertising copy on your sales web site.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Also added here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brightwell-boost-ph.1022378/

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

BRS does not list it on their web site.

 

[JayM]

I love the idea, but I'm not sure that I'm smart enough to know which products are snake oil, and which products are not.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I love the idea, but I'm not sure that I'm smart enough to know which products are snake oil, and which products are not.

It can be very hard to know with certainty. I am not aware of ANY reef product company that actually provides data to back up claims.

Claims like "brings out the red colors in corals are among the most ridiculous, IMO, but are also not easily proven wrong (just as they would be hard to prove right) and thus are so appealing to suppliers.

In cases where manufacturers list ingredients, however, and where those ingredients are not consistent with the claims, the job is made much easier. This Brightwell product, and the sister product from Aquavitro Balance, are self evidently misleading for this reason: the listed product does not match the claim.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

This ought to end up being a very lengthy thread! Well, unless/until it gets closed. There’s a few out there

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I want to join on the stop supporting companies misleading reefers train here.

I use brightwell's coral aminos, and chaeto grow. I assume I need the plethora of elements in chaeto grow, and as far as I have heard, brightwell's aminos are what a lot of coral farms that use aminos use as their amino product.

Do you have a personal recommendation for an alternative? I know of your diy Iron, but I assume I need more than just iron based on my absurd amount of chaeto/gallon in my system.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I filled out this support ticket on Brightwell web site:

Can you clarify why you have for years claimed that the hydroxide in your Boost pH+ product does not boost alkalinity, while at the same time you claim that the hydroxide in your kalk+2 product does provide alkalinity?

Of course hydroxide instantly provides alkalinity. No chemical additive can boost pH in seawater and not boost alkalinity.

There's also nothing temporary about it, but that's an issue with the kalk+2 description, not the boost pH+.

Thus, the claim on Boost pH+ is wrong.

It is properly called a high pH alkalinity supplement, not anything else.

 

[rtparty]

This ought to end up being a very lengthy thread! Well, unless/until it gets closed. There’s a few out there

I don't think anyone will be closing a Randy thread anytime soon ;)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I filled out this support ticket at Aquavitro (I mistyped the name when I first sent it)

Can you clarify why you claim that the hydroxide in your Balance product does not boost alkalinity?

Of course hydroxide instantly provides alkalinity. No chemical additive can boost pH in seawater and not boost alkalinity. That's the basis for supplementing alkalinity with kalkwasser.

It is properly called a high pH alkalinity supplement, not anything else.

 

[rtparty]

I want to join on the stop supporting companies misleading reefers train here.

I use brightwell's coral aminos, and chaeto grow. I assume I need the plethora of elements in chaeto grow, and as far as I have heard, brightwell's aminos are what a lot of coral farms that use aminos use as their amino product.

Do you have a personal recommendation for an alternative? I know of your diy Iron, but I assume I need more than just iron based on my absurd amount of chaeto/gallon in my system.

Most companies have a product or two where they make false claims/assumptions. It doesn't make the entire company bad though IMO

Many Brightwell products work extremely well. Even some that they don't market properly

 

[KStatefan]

I emailed Brightwell about their instructions for Neomarine sale adding units to the specific gravity in their instructions on the bucket and website was told it was a typo but they have not fixed it.

"134 g per 1 US-gallon (3.785 L) of purified water yields a specific gravity of ~1.025 g/cm3, with a pH of ~8.30 and alkalinity of ~7.5 dKH."

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Many Brightwell products work extremely well. Even some that they don't market properly

This one probably would too, if it was called a very high pH alkalinity supplement.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

a specific gravity of ~1.025 g/cm3

lol

 

[KrisReef]

....but until the devil is exorcized the Demons will continue to plague us.
Lord Have Mercy.

Thanks for the effort, RHF! :smiling-face-with-sunglasses: You are a reefing Saint.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Most companies have a product or two where they make false claims/assumptions. It doesn't make the entire company bad though IMO

Many Brightwell products work extremely well. Even some that they don't market properly

This was my thought on it as well, but there is a person who posted trying to figure out why their alk was over 20DKH, come to find out they were using a product with the "raises PH doesn't add calcium or alk" description recomended to them by their LFS.

i don't want to contribute in any way to that anymore. I love the brightwell products I use, and if they have been made aware now for sure they have a product with this claim, thanks to rand's ticket, and don't correct it, I will have to stop buying their products.

It majorly bumbs me out that people have probably lost their livestock due to a product that is essentially tricking them.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Well, Seachem has stooped to a new low in misinformation and ignorance. Here is their response:

Support FD (Seachem Laboratories) Dec 6, 2023, 17:41 AST Hello! Thank you for the email. The hydroxide blend in Balance will bind up acid sources in the tank, thus raising the pH. It also interacts with the carbonate and converts it to bicarbonate. Ultimately, it does not raise alkalinity, but rather is re-organizing the balance of the existing buffers". Best regards, FD

 

[MnFish1]

It can be very hard to know with certainty. I am not aware of ANY reef product company that actually provides data to back up claims.

Claims like "brings out the red colors in corals are among the most ridiculous, IMO, but are also not easily proven wrong (just as they would be hard to prove right) and thus are so appealing to suppliers.

In cases where manufacturers list ingredients, however, and where those ingredients are not consistent with the claims, the job is made much easier. This Brightwell product, and the sister product from Aquavitro Balance, are self evidently misleading for this reason: the listed product does not match the claim.

@Randy Holmes-Farley I was curious - that product that I posted about - with my discus - clearly did 'something' very quickly. The discus expert (world-wide) that I consulted about the symptoms suggested nitrite toxicity - and within a very short time (twice to my embarrassment) - the symptoms which were moribund fish - abated. Do you think that the sodium bisulfite (I think thats what it was that you quoted from the SDS) could have helped? On the product label it gives a dose for 'starting a tank' - the dose for detoxifying nitrite/nitrate/ammonia is (forgive me - either 5x or 10x the usual dose)?

 

[SaltyCabbage]

Well, Seachem has stooped to a new low in misinformation and ignorance. Here is their response:

Support FD (Seachem Laboratories) Dec 6, 2023, 17:41 AST Hello! Thank you for the email. The hydroxide blend in Balance will bind up acid sources in the tank, thus raising the pH. It also interacts with the carbonate and converts it to bicarbonate. Ultimately, it does not raise alkalinity, but rather is re-organizing the balance of the existing buffers". Best regards, FD

Ever since the prime issue a few years ago I’ve completely stopped believing anything Seachem claims about their products. Seems like nothing has changed