Understanding Vibrant: Algaefix, Polixetonium Chloride / Busan 77

[areefer01]

needs to expect a bit of grief. Maybe not more than a bit, but at least some.

How to measure 'some'. Right up there with how to measure a planet

Hope everyone is having a find Sunday!

Edit: btw @jda I was smiling at "some" is all. Did not mean anything negative.

 

[Malcontent]

Thinking Vibarant was bacteria culture I gave it to my daughter to cycle her fresh water 14 gallon tank. One week in her fish was dead just stopped eating and died, all water parameters were fine.
The fish was a one year old Betta. We were transferring it from college to home
(one tank to another with no live bacteria) Just makes me wonder, this fish has been thru the ringer over the last year. she has gone back and forth to school, winter break and so on never a problem till she added the Vibrant. Sorry for the tangent just thinking out loud.

Algaefix has wiped out many freshwater tanks including one of mine years ago (OK, half the fish survived but still...). Years later I came across a discussion on koiphen where people found toxicity studies and determined the recommended dose could be lethal to fish.

If I knew any other product contained the same ingredient I would not put it in any of my tanks under any circumstances.

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

Shame, I was just two weeks late to this article otherwise we might still have my daughter's room mate with us.

 

[GARRIGA]

 

[avidhexagrammid]

Choline-based ionic liquids do not have any useful algaecidal activity for aquaria.

Why not?

The papers you mentioned (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2020.117288) use 50% by weight of the choline ionic liquids to kill algae. Now, that is a lot choline! For a 100 gallon aquarium, this would require about 50 gallons of your choline ionic liquids, which would kill everything.

That particular paper (specifically investigating Ch-diphenylalanine, no others) indicated that concentrations ranging from 10% to 70% w/w had immediate degradation effects on the cell wall and complete lysing within 24 hours for all but the 10% w/w. Those concentrations are for industrial application in algae biorefineries. A lot of choline for a lot of algae in not a lot of time.

The NMR spectra of choline are very simple and do not match the NMR from Vibrant. Yes, choline has a counteranion to balance the charge in the ionic liquid. The paper you cite uses diphenylalanine, which would give up to 14 additional carbon signals.

I want to make sure that this is clear: I'm not purporting to have figured out the active ingredients/synthesis pathway or saying that a specific compound used in an article is what's found in Vibrant. I've suggested two molecules (or modified iterations thereof) which have properties that could potentially be applied for this purpose and still account for a fair chunk of the results presented here. I previously acknowledged that the C NMR was the most compelling aspect to me (which hasn't changed) and I appreciate you being specific in your interpretation. The predictions from nmrdb weren't' quite getting me there.

Despite this, I'm still unable to write off the possibility that Vibrant could be the product of a novel work. The comment about the ASM Microbe conference still seems plausible to me because:

• It's a simple explanation for keeping the composition of the 'bacteria blend' proprietary knowledge until after the conference. I know this part seems suspicious to a lot of people here but it's a thing. Unfortunately, it looks like ASM has an embargo policy.
  
  
• It's something that can be verified relatively easily by checking the book of abstracts once it's released.
  
  
• Without a background in/knowledge of that field, I doubt someone would know to use it as a lie...but also, having the background required to lie about it would usually ensure that person isn't stupid enough to lie about it in the first place (because it's verifiable).

 

[LgTas]

If someone has an alternative hypothesis they should be putting in the same effort that @taricha and co have to support it...

Hanging your hat on a conference abstract is also clutching at straws. I've seen some very suspect abstracts make it into a conference, only to be discredited at the Q&A stage.

 

[elysics]

Why not?


That particular paper (specifically investigating Ch-diphenylalanine, no others) indicated that concentrations ranging from 10% to 70% w/w had immediate degradation effects on the cell wall and complete lysing within 24 hours for all but the 10% w/w. Those concentrations are for industrial application in algae biorefineries. A lot of choline for a lot of algae in not a lot of time.


I want to make sure that this is clear: I'm not purporting to have figured out the active ingredients/synthesis pathway or saying that a specific compound used in an article is what's found in Vibrant. I've suggested two molecules (or modified iterations thereof) which have properties that could potentially be applied for this purpose and still account for a fair chunk of the results presented here. I previously acknowledged that the C NMR was the most compelling aspect to me (which hasn't changed) and I appreciate you being specific in your interpretation. The predictions from nmrdb weren't' quite getting me there.

Despite this, I'm still unable to write off the possibility that Vibrant could be the product of a novel work. The comment about the ASM Microbe conference still seems plausible to me because:

• It's a simple explanation for keeping the composition of the 'bacteria blend' proprietary knowledge until after the conference. I know this part seems suspicious to a lot of people here but it's a thing. Unfortunately, it looks like ASM has an embargo policy.
  
  
• It's something that can be verified relatively easily by checking the book of abstracts once it's released.
  
  
• Without a background in/knowledge of that field, I doubt someone would know to use it as a lie...but also, having the background required to lie about it would usually ensure that person isn't stupid enough to lie about it in the first place (because it's verifiable).

So you admit you are wasting everyone's time by talking about choline when you know it can't be the ingredient because it doesn't tick all the boxes?

And i bet you are unable to write off the possibility that Vibrant would be genuine, that would probably get you fired

 

[shwareefer]

Polyquat made however they make polyquats = algaecide.
Polyquat-like substance produced by super special bacteria = algaecide.
Tomato Tomauto.

Quote from UWC website:

"After being asked so many times, we decided that we should share what we knew worked so well. So, we teamed up with a group of scientists and created a consumer based version of the same product, which we have simply named Vibrant."

Yes, somehow they knew how to choose and culture specific bacteria who's biproduct was an algaecide (that looks just like one they could have bought without doing that) before they even hooked up with any scientists.

Wow, case closed, everyone go home.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

RE: polyaspartic acid, I'm going to guess that you didn't skim any of the sources I included about cyanophycin synthetase. Polyaspartic acid is what would result from polymerization of that enzyme upon activation from the K+ and Mg+ ions in the tank water.

I am a nationally recognized polymer chemistry expert. I am 100% aware of exactly what these polymers are and what they will do.

That statement above is totally unrelated to the materials in Vibrant, to the response in any test taricha did, or to any part of the discussion.

If you want to help us all search for the truth, that's great. All are welcome to do so.

If your intent is to shroud the truth in a web of misleading comments, that's not going to go unchallenged.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

They're literally inconclusive. They do not add to anything except a snowballing confirmation bias.

Edit: I should clarify that I don't think that was what @taricha intended.

Fine. Feel free to ignore them. It doesn't change the fact that the materials are identical to algaefix.

I think you have speculated incorrectly how other materials might behave in these tests, but without trying them, none of us know, and it doesn't matter for the context of this discussion (IMO).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

New to the "Vibrant scandal" is this the actual "scientific study" or does someone have a link to it as there is a lot missing to fulfill the bas

What info is missing that is not present in this thread?

Two different people had multiple different batches of the material tested in two different NMR labs, and got an identical result to algaefix.

That result matches what one knows the result would look like for the known material in algaefix, and does not look anything like the result expected for a bacterial broth.

Oh, I know what's missing. The NMR data that UWC undoubtedly now has now from their own experiments that they said would be done last week, and hasn't been posted.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Why not?

Because it is way, way too diluted in an aquarium.

Salt is algaecidal too, by a definition where 10% by weight is considered a useful concentration.

 

[Tampanights]

I have always wondered how anyone actually believed this was a bacterial product. The ingredients say 95% bacteria and 3.5% water. If that was the case, the product would be basically a solid.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Any statement from UWC yet?

I wrote them again this morning. Time is running out for a response.

 

[dank reefer]

I should clarify exactly what the exchange consisted of so there's no misunderstanding.

He did not literally ask me what tests to run. I worded that poorly

He emailed me and said he was having some tests run, and I asked which ones.

He responded mentioning some tests, and I then told him the tests that I thought were most important (NMR run exactly as taricha did).

This is all comical to some degree.

Run the same test @taricha did, and now @jda so that you can get the same results they received.

And then @avidhexagrammid comes out of no where and the first comments, and only comments they have made have been on these threads.

@UWC Shame on you for sending in one of your lackeys to defend your product and give us their point of view with no data to back up as @taricha, and @jda have provided.

 

[areefer01]

@UWC Shame on you for sending in one of your lackeys to defend your product and give us their point of view with no data to back up as @taricha, and @jda have provided.

It could be that they are unrelated to one another and just someone on the internet role playing and stirring the pot...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I had my hypothesis somewhat formulated before I got here. I made the account to ask questions that were relevant to me determining its feasibility since not a soul here had actually questioned anything that was posted and the methodology was not entirely transparent. Major red flag to accept it all at face value considering the accusations associated with it. It actually requires minimal time and effort to find soft spots in the analyses here due to the approach that was taken.

I'm not sure what methodology was (is?) not transparent enough about drying a sample and taking an NMR in D2O, but the assertion that they matched and were consistent with the algaecide structure and not with bacteria or aspartic acid was evaluated by a number of known people with ability to interpret NMR.

 

[GARRIGA]

I wrote them again this morning. Time is running out for a response.

I’ve lost all faith in UWC. Coming from the skeptic I am. That says a lot.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I respectfully disagree. Seems like there's something going on there, especially when we acknowledge that Vibrant is an unknown mixture. Here's a quick and dirty merge of the choline chloride spectrum (black) and Vibrant (red). I decolorized cyan for ease of reading.

Of course the IR are similar for chemically similar compounds. The only IR related difference between choline and polexitonium is the OH group.

That said, these spectra do not look to me to match.

Does it look like an IR of bacteria (as the product claims to be)? No, not even close.

Fig. 4. ATR-FTIR spectra of bacteria on surfaces: (a) Dried Bacillus...

Download scientific diagram | ATR-FTIR spectra of bacteria on surfaces: (a) Dried Bacillus sp. on bare ZnSe, (b) Bacillus sp. in aqueous environment on Al 2 O 3 coated ZnSe surface, (c) Bacillus sp. in aqueous environment on bare ZnSe, (d) Dried Escherichia coli on bare ZnSe, (e) Escherichia...

www.researchgate.net

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Initial samples were clear, and the NMR operator confirmed to me what @jeffww said, and how this stuff behaved when I dried it (much less thoroughly). It redissolved in D2O clear and without residues, so near 100% into NMR tube.

Thank you, taricha.