Vibrant Effect On Chaetomorpha Growth

[Dan_P]

Vibrant Effect On Chaetomorpha Growth

I conducted an exploratory experiment, exposing two samples of Chaetomorpha to the recommended dose of Vibrant in aquarium water (6 ppm NO3; 0.4 ppm PO4) for three days. Two other samples were grown in just aquarium water as controls. Medium was replaced daily. At the end of this time, one control sample and one Vibrant treated sample were placed in the same container, separated by a plastic mesh divider. The other control and treated samples were kept in separate containers. All samples were grown in just aquarium water. The plot below is the trend in Chaetomorpha relative mass (mass/initial mass) for duration of the experiment.

The effect of Vibrant on alga growth is apparent after the second day of treatment and growth suppression continued after the Vibrant treated alga samples were moved to aquarium water. The Vibrant treated samples also began to fragment between days 4 and 5. Interestingly, small patches of hair algae growing on the Chaetomorpha appeared to grow unabated during and after the Vibrant exposure. The mixed Chaetomorpha samples seemed to have an influence on each other. The simplest but unproven explanation is that the adsorbed Vibrant migrated from the treated to the untreated sample.

The next step is to reproduced these observations with replicate samples before spinning any yarns about how permanent the Vibrant effect is, the Vibrant dose and exposure time that is lethal to Chaetomorpha, and whether Vibrant can desorb from Chaetomorpha.

Questions and suggestions welcome.

Dan

 

[youcallmenny1]

Interesting @Dan_P ! What are your plans for testing the long-term effect on chaeto growth? Anecdotally, it's been several months and still zero growth on my end.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks Dan.

This is not any sort of criticism of your study, but something to keep in mind. When I tried to study the possible effects of iodine on chaeto growth, I found that the effect of lighting may have been strong enough to impact the results despite all samples being under the same light. The samples were in multiple small containers below a fluorescent tube. The ones at the ends of the rows grew more slowly, suggesting an edge effect, likely from lighting, even though they were all under the same long fluorescent tubes.

 

[taricha]

Nice Dan. Any chance that a lightly soapy saltwater bath/rinse saves the chaeto?

 

[Dan_P]

Interesting @Dan_P ! What are your plans for testing the long-term effect on chaeto growth? Anecdotally, it's been several months and still zero growth on my end.

No solid plans yet. The long term effect could take quite a bit of work to clarify. I will probably start by looking for a dose that stalls Chaetomorpha growth for only a short while.

Is your nitrate still under control? I observed nitrate and phosphate consumption for my stalled Chaetomorpha, though the study was very short.

 

[Dan_P]

Thanks Dan.

This is not any sort of criticism of your study, but something to keep in mind. When I tried to study the possible effects of iodine on chaeto growth, I found that the effect of lighting may have been strong enough to impact the results despite all samples being under the same light. The samples were in multiple small containers below a fluorescent tube. The ones at the ends of the rows grew more slowly, suggesting an edge effect, likely from lighting, even though they were all under the same long fluorescent tubes.

Fear not, my ego is not so brittle nor my confidence so high that a “watch out” isn’t welcomed. Your chart also reminds us about the importance of replicates.

For my illumination check, I am using a Lux meter with sensor that I can place on top of each culture vessel to get a sense of the evenness of the illumination. Still I won’t be happy until I can replicate the observations.

Your results remind me of my Ulva+Vibrant experiment. Ulva treated with Vibrant grew slowly like the controls but when the illumination increased, the control growth went up but the treated Ulva growth did not.

Dan

 

[Dan_P]

Nice Dan. Any chance that a lightly soapy saltwater bath/rinse saves the chaeto?

That just went on my list of things to do next!

 

[Spare time]

Have you considered repeating this to get means between groups?

 

[youcallmenny1]

No solid plans yet. The long term effect could take quite a bit of work to clarify. I will probably start by looking for a dose that stalls Chaetomorpha growth for only a short while.

Is your nitrate still under control? I observed nitrate and phosphate consumption for my stalled Chaetomorpha, though the study was very short.

It is indeed a more complicated issue, I agree. Yes, my No3/Po4 are both under control by way of my filter roller and skimmer. Around 5ppm and 0.07ppm respectively. Certainly nothing that should be inhibiting the macro growth. It's both fresh chaeto and dragon's breath that were introduced several months after dosing of Vibrant ceased.

 

[Dan_P]

Have you considered repeating this to get means between groups?

I won’t rest until these observations are replicated with replicates

 

[Dan_P]

It is indeed a more complicated issue, I agree. Yes, my No3/Po4 are both under control by way of my filter roller and skimmer. Around 5ppm and 0.07ppm respectively. Certainly nothing that should be inhibiting the macro growth. It's both fresh chaeto and dragon's breath that were introduced several months after dosing of Vibrant ceased.

I would bet the algae is still consuming nitrate and phosphate, just not robustly.

 

[youcallmenny1]

I would bet the algae is still consuming nitrate and phosphate, just not robustly.

I'm not sure I agree. They've both sat there doing nothing for quite some time. They're not dying or withering away and slowly growing slime over them. If they are it's absolutely minimal so as to be more or less the same as none.

 

[bnord]

nice work and thanks for your perseverance -
A dose ranging study would be powerful, me thinks

 

[Dan_P]

This study was performed to confirm the Vibrant effect and to look for a possible recovery of stalled Chaetomorpha after exposure to Vibrant. In this experiment I grew the Chaetomorpha for three days before exposing it to Vibrant to confirm that each sample was growing similarly. I also used a 9x12 LED grow light panel to further ensure consistent lighting across all four reactors.

The first graph recaps the first experiment. Two Chaeto samples were exposed to the recommended dose of Vibrant for three days. Clearly, Vibrant had an effect. Then the treated samples were grown in just aquarium water as was the control. One control sample and one Vibrant treated sample were housed in the same reactor (arrows in plot indicate which samples these were). The other control and Vibrant treated samples were housed in their own reactor. By day 7 it looked like there might have been a better recovery for the Vibrant treated Chaeto sample housed with the control and a slow down of the control growth. Or was it just variation?

In the latest experiment (see plot below). I grew the four samples for three days before adding Vibrant. As can be seen in the plot, the samples exhibited similar growth rates. Upon treating two of the samples with the recommended dose of Vibrant for only 24 hours this time, the Chaeto growth stalled as before but the recovery and resumption of growth is easier to see.

Conclusion. Chaeto growth is stalled by Vibrant at the recommended dose but under some circumstances might recover.

In the next experiment, I isolated filamentous algae growing on My Chaeto (epiphyte) and cultured it to create four samples to test its response to exposure to Vibrant.

Before looking at the plot below, keep in mind this mixed algal culture behaved differently than Chaetomodpha or Ulva. It grew to a point, then started to fragment a bit. The fragments were colorless. I presume the culture had reached a point where it went “sexual” or started to reproduce. This growth/fragmentation occurred in the main culture as well.

The plot below shows that the growth of the four samples were roughly equivalent and that a 24 h exposure to Vibrant clearly had a negative effect on algae mass. Part of the mass loss was from fragmentation, but the Vibrant treated filaments also looked liked boiled spinach, limp and crumpled. All we can say here is that Vibrant was bad for this mixed culture.

I throw out this thought to be provocative. I am beginning to wonder whether Vibrant might be useful in algae control if we understood how to use it better, e.g., understand the minimum dosing needed and how to avoid accumulation that might cause harm to other aquarium inhabitants. In the spirit of transparency, I must confess to using snails to control my display tank algae.

 

[taricha]

I throw out this thought to be provocative. I am beginning to wonder whether Vibrant might be useful in algae control if we understood how to use it better, e.g., understand the minimum dosing needed and how to avoid accumulation that might cause harm to other aquarium

It's an idea worth thinking about. We run systems that are driven by light and are usually well fed. The control of unwanted algae will always be a challenge, because we can't have the heavy lifting herbivores present on real reefs. There will always be a market for products that actually do something to control unwanted algae. If not this cationic polymer, then other chemicals.

I've been thinking about the delivery of this. If our understanding is correct, the chemical binds rapidly to surfaces in fresh water (as reported in literature), but hangs around quite a bit in saltwater (as per our measurements). So I have wondered if making a few hundred mL of distilled water with the product in it and turning the pumps off and delivering the algaecide+freshwater via spot dosing into tufts of target algae with a syringe would be effective. Maybe out of a plume of freshwater the attachment to algae would be much more efficient, and since we know it's surface active, then spot dosing seems a much better fit that tankwide.
Maybe one could knock out hunks of GHA this way with only 1/10 the amount of chemical than in a full tankwide dose.

Maybe it'd work. But the flip side of this is why bother? Why would I do this when I could just do the same with H2O2, perhaps get the same results, and have much more certainty about the lifetime, mechanism of breakdown, and final fate of the chemical.
I'm wondering, before the effort is spent to optimize its use, how to assess whether the best chemical for the purpose is this algaecide.
Why not Dino-X?
Why not Fluconazole?

 

[Dan_P]

It's an idea worth thinking about. We run systems that are driven by light and are usually well fed. The control of unwanted algae will always be a challenge, because we can't have the heavy lifting herbivores present on real reefs. There will always be a market for products that actually do something to control unwanted algae. If not this cationic polymer, then other chemicals.

I've been thinking about the delivery of this. If our understanding is correct, the chemical binds rapidly to surfaces in fresh water (as reported in literature), but hangs around quite a bit in saltwater (as per our measurements). So I have wondered if making a few hundred mL of distilled water with the product in it and turning the pumps off and delivering the algaecide+freshwater via spot dosing into tufts of target algae with a syringe would be effective. Maybe out of a plume of freshwater the attachment to algae would be much more efficient, and since we know it's surface active, then spot dosing seems a much better fit that tankwide.
Maybe one could knock out hunks of GHA this way with only 1/10 the amount of chemical than in a full tankwide dose.

Maybe it'd work. But the flip side of this is why bother? Why would I do this when I could just do the same with H2O2, perhaps get the same results, and have much more certainty about the lifetime, mechanism of breakdown, and final fate of the chemical.
I'm wondering, before the effort is spent to optimize its use, how to assess whether the best chemical for the purpose is this algaecide.
Why not Dino-X?
Why not Fluconazole?

The ”whole tank dosing” data for the different algaecides that we all encounter on the internet does not give enough information to determine the best algecide, nor the correct dosing rate, the dose per surface area, adsorption rate, recovery rate of desirable species, accumulation risk, to name a few more questions. This is a many month project! Deepest rabbit hole I’ve seen so far.

I like the spot dosing idea. My impression is that the adsorption rate and therefore rate of algaecide activity might be too slow. But, it needs investigating. You know that you are generating a large number of distracting ideas for me

Let’s see what the consensus is on whether we need a definitive answer to “what is the best algaecide”.

 

[Lasse]

Let’s see what the consensus is on whether we need a definitive answer to “what is the best algaecide”.

And the winner is ----- A good reefer that's know the importance multicultural setups and grazers

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Dan_P]

And the winner is ----- A good reefer that's know the importance multicultural setups and grazers

Sincerely Lasse

I understand and endorse the use of grazers. Can you explain multicultural setups for us?

 

[Lasse]

With multicultural I mean - use as many and different organisms as possible to have in just your aquarium. There is no organisms that´s are a "pest" IMO. Control the development of possible monoculturists with predators. Do not use chemicals that´s not in its first breakdown step are water and oxygen ( I can still have my beloved hydrogen peroxide )

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Dan_P]

With multicultural I mean - use as many and different organisms as possible to have in just your aquarium. There is no organisms that´s are a "pest" IMO. Control the development of possible monoculturists with predators. Do not use chemicals that´s not in its first breakdown step are water and oxygen ( I can still have my beloved hydrogen peroxide )

Sincerely Lasse

Thanks!