Waste Away: Is it really bacterial? Or chemical? What does it do?

[taricha]

I gather that his perspective is that tericha is a bit out of his realm, and didn't beat around the bush to tell him so

Appeals to authority can be dicey. But what's in the bottle is in the bottle, regardless of who does the testing. That's one of the things we like about science.

...the accusation that there isn't any bacteria in this product and here's the test to prove it...

I'm glad you mentioned that, because it gives me chance to emphasize.
I didn't say that, and it's not my position. If Dr Tim said he put bacteria in the bottles, I'll take his word for it. I haven't demonstrated otherwise (didn't try to) and probably couldn't prove that negative anyway.

I said that the effect of the media without the bacteria is large and easily measured, and the effect of the bacteria apart from the media is undetectable with the same methods.
I also didn't say it doesn't work, or does nothing. I am saying it does a lot, but the effects that can be measured are due to the media, not the bacteria.

Oh, one more thing It's been brought up a couple of times as to contacting Dr Tim with Qs. He answered a series of relevant questions about the WA bacteria in this thread. His answers informed the testing approach.
He was asked for "proof" that it works, and responded that the 'proof' is the results [meaning testable/observable water parameters] So I did some tests.

I think I only have one real question for him, this one.

In the meantime... is there an experiment that you can suggest that would demonstrate the bacteria in a bottle of WA doing something other than what the media in WA does?

 

[Michael Gray]

Well waste away arrives tomorrow. I bought as another in case I wanna try it for my 2 forms of Dino's lol

 

[SMSREEF]

I think this thread is great. I do feel that some constructive input from DrTim would be great since Waste Away is sold as a bacterial agent.

@DrTim , how do we grow this bacteria to see it under a microscope and actually confirm. Not that I want your trade secrets, I don’t, but I like to know what I’m adding to my tank.
What family/strain of bacteria am I adding to my tank when using waste away?
How long is this bacteria expected to live and multiply once added?
Is it a phagocytic bacteria?

If Dr Tim said he put bacteria in the bottles, I'll take his word for it. I haven't demonstrated otherwise (didn't try to) and probably couldn't prove that negative anyway.

If it has bacteria, we should be able to prove it. That was kinda my initial post reasoning.... it’s not that I didn’t read your initial experiments. Although I think my post read that way so I’m sorry. I just still had some questions about the real existence of the bacteria. I was thinking more along the lines of a PCR analysis to see what strain or family of bacteria we are adding when using Waste Away.

 

[taricha]

I just still had some questions about the real existence of the bacteria. I was thinking more along the lines of a PCR analysis to see what strain or family of bacteria we are adding when using Waste Away.

A fancy lab setup that can spit out the names of the bacteria in the bottle would be fun, however it wouldn't tell us anything about whether those bacteria do anything important upon addition to our established aquaria. For that, we need to actually measure effects.

 

[thedon986]

Well waste away arrives tomorrow. I bought as another in case I wanna try it for my 2 forms of Dino's lol

I have been dosing that along with SpongExcel and that has been working well for my dino fight. Regardless of what is in WA, I see results. I was dosing just SpongExcel and not until I started WA did I see measurable decrease in visual dinos.

 

[taricha]

I have been dosing that along with SpongExcel and that has been working well for my dino fight. Regardless of what is in WA, I see results. I was dosing just SpongExcel and not until I started WA did I see measurable decrease in visual dinos.

Yep. It helps a lot of people! For those interested, here's a thread on a method for combatting dinos with WA + big Carbon doses.

 

[Miller535]

To everyone who keeps posting at Dr Tim, I am pretty sure he is not going to respond. If you look at his profile in 2 years he only posted like 45 messages. And I think he only came on this time because he was mad, because he felt that he and his product were being defemated

 

[Rick Mathew]

To everyone who keeps posting at Dr Tim, I am pretty sure he is not going to respond. If you look at his profile in 2 years he only posted like 45 messages. And I think he only came on this time because he was mad, because he felt that he and his product were being defemated

To me that would be sad.... for we could all benefit from a good respectful technical interchange and stand to learn something about the science of Reef Keeping...just my opinion

 

[DrTim]

Dear @taricha your work is definitely not a waste of time to me as a regular reefer. Thank you for doing this for helping our community to understand better what is in the products we are using and how/if they work.

Will somebody who knows exactly what is in the bottle do the experiment in another way or follow another protocol? Sure, and that is the point - if they dont want somebody to run such "blind" tests they are free to list the ingredients of their products on the label, and then the test will be more accurate.

So well done! At least now we know that Waste Away contains a very strong preservative that needs to be diluted 3800 times before allowing bacteria to grow. Do I want this strong preservative in my tank? Well I dont know, because still I dont know what is it.

Thank you very much once again and keep the good work!

People can run all the test that want but they use the product as directed not as they assume.

 

[DrTim]

I reread both your post and the @taricha post. I have several topics to discuss with the both of you, but let’s start with the topic of the spore inhibitor. Two points

(1) You failed to provide any data on the spore inhibitor to support your claim that taricha added too much WasteAway

(2) Experiment 8 appears to indicate that the spores fail to grow

If a scientist is going to critique another’s work, it is common practice to provide supporting data for the counter claim. I fully appreciate the importance of trade secrets in your business. At a minimum, a plot of spore germination time versus concentration of inhibitor, or whatever results demonstrate a minimum effective dose, would not seem like a threat to your revenue and support your claim that too much WasteAway inhibits the product, i.e., bacteria growth. And if it is not a trade secret, tell us what the inhibitor is.

I reread experiment 8 where in taricha centrifuges WasteAway from the liquid to determine what part each fraction plays in his tests. The solid presumably contains the spores and the supernatant contains the inhibitor and medium to carry the spores. The results of his test seem to indicate that the pellet, which presumably is the spores removed from the inhibitor, shows no biological activity as judged by oxygen consumption. And contrary to what you posted, there is indeed a control in the experiment to demonstrate to a fair degree that the medium is bacteria “friendly”. Taricha inoculates the sterile medium with tank water, thus showing that the medium supports bacteria growth. Louis Pasteur would have been proud.

Louis Pasteur would be turning in his grave. If someone is going to run tests use the product as described. That was not done. And once again there are no controls. Before I run and show any tests - tell me this - are you going to believe them? You don't seem to believe what I say so why would pictures and graphs change that?

 

[Miller535]

@DrTim , I respectfully ask again, if you could help us understand your product better. Perhaps you could point out what inaccuracies you feel have been made, and help us understand how how WA works. Again, not asking for the secret recipe.

 

[DrTim]

@DrTim , I would not expect KFC to give me their recipe for their chicken. Nor do I expect you to tell me everything that is in your waste away. But can you please shed some light on waste away and explain it to us so that we understand what it does and doesn't do. There are some big claims on this bottle, like help's reduce slime algae and cyano, increases orp, helps skimmer work more effectively, helps clean clogged sandbed and filters. Especially the last part, I think that's why the tester wanted to see a reduction in the sludge. Possibly give us what you think is a better way to test it. I would also like to understand why the PH dropped so significantly after I used it the one time. And I only used a half dose as directed on the bottle. And I do not have much visible algae at all, and do routine water changes and sand bed syphoning. Thank you

Used properly you will see a reduction in sludge but no where do we say "completely eliminates detritus". Fresh organic material is quickly colonized by bacteria (fish poop is full of bacteria, just like human feces) but just like in sewage process plant there is certain portion that cannot be further broken down. In aquatic systems this leads to sedimentation and why lake slowly fill over time. You do not get 100% digestion of the material that is why the control is so important. How do we know the material in tests 1 and 2 can be digested by bacteria. The thinking is sludge is digested, this is sludge so it must be digestible and that is false thinking because 100% of the sludge in not digestable.

Your pH dropped because when the bacteria in Waste-Away digest or mineralize the organics one of the by-products is ammonia. That ammonia goes into the nitrification cycle and nitrification produce hydrogen ions which causes the pH to drop. This is how you can tell the bacteria in Waste-Away are working.

 

[DrTim]

Wow, just read all this and the only thing I find more disappointing than than the results is DrTims response to it. Downright belittling and insulting in my opinion. This was a great chance to shed some light on the subject, offer advice, give some constructive criticism and respectfully voice your opinions on the results. You sir failed at all of the above.

@op, thank you so much for putting this together. In a hobby full of snake oils we definitely need more unbiased research into what we are putting in our tanks, I don't think anyone here wants the secret crabby paddy formula, just a rundown of what's in it and what we can legitimately expect from it. Would love to see MB7 up next.

see my reply to the next post

 

[DrTim]

Dr. Tim's response (in post 80) to my initial write-up on a series of Waste Away experiments seems to have muddied the water and may leave many wondering how much we understand about WA. I'll try to clarify.

In my initial description, I suggested two possible ways the WA might be acting in the tests and in our aquariums: as a nutrient additive that feeds the existing bacteria already in the system - OR - as a probiotic that inoculates the system with bacteria that were not already there. The experiments supported the first hypothesis. Dr Tim objected.

Dr. Tim suggested that the data from the experiments could not be trusted for 2 reasons.
The first was that the experiment protocol used too much WA. He claimed that the WA bacteria spores included a preservative to prevent spore activation in the bottle.
The second reason given was that the experiments did not have sufficient controls to generate reliable data. Let's review those objections.

Dr. Tim stated without providing any data to support his claim, that the dilution of WA down to the recommended dose of 10mL per 10 Gal was important to reduce the concentration of the inhibitor and allow the spores to activate. He implied that stronger concentrations than this were detrimental. Experiment 5 (as well as Experiment 4 and "bonus experiment 1" in post 27) all did use the recommended dilution, but experiment 5 results are worth revisiting in detail.
Left is the original chart I posted for experiment 5, Right is with the control that was used as a baseline also shown.
[typo corrected: y-axis label was incorrectly "O2 concentration" when it should have been "O2 consumed"]

In this experiment, one of the runs ("WA-pellet") involved separating the spores completely from the inhibitor by centrifugation, and then subjecting them to oxygen replete aquarium water - conditions that should have activated them. The spores failed to grow as evidenced by the lack of Oxygen demand - essentially identical to the control ("Cntl"). Furthermore, another run had these separated spores re-combined with the separated media in WA ("WA-media+pellet") and it again showed no oxygen demand from the spores - essentially identical to the separated media ("WA-media").
This data, with the issue of dilution removed supports the notion that Waste Away is not inoculating the aquarium with bacteria.
As for Dr. Tim's other concern, the lack of sufficient controls, lets review the protocols.

In experiments 1&2, what we would call grunge was subjected to a WA treatment. It was not digested. Dr. Tim objected that there was no positive control, meaning that the grunge might not be digestible by anything and so the failure of WA should not count against it. This is somewhat hypocritical given that we frequently refer to this matter as grunge or similar, Dr. Tim knows we do, and makes claims for the product that strongly suggest that it can remove it, but then suggests it's not digestible when the product doesn't.

For experiments 3 and 7 the there aren't "controls" because these are standard test protocols used to test for various substances in WA in support of hypothesis 1 - that WA is a nutrient additive.

The control in experiment 4 is the initial Biochemical Oxygen Demand of the medium. An alternative to the “self as control” approach would have been to run a separate container of tank water and dose RODI instead of WasteAway.

Experiment 5 uses plain WA (“WA- Whole”) and plain tank water ("Cntl") as the controls and experiment 6 uses untreated WA as the control.

In experiment 8 the control was the positive result in the test of the sterile medium to support bacteria growth (increased turbidity).


To recap, there is indeed credible experimental evidence describing the way Waste Away actually behaves.

You do not have controls and yes grunge can be digested but you want everyone to assume the grunge your test is digestible when in fact 100% of the grunge in aquarium is not digestible. You failed to show that grunge you test can be digested - that is a simple fact. I am not doing to re-hash my points they are all valid.

Everyone please do not take this next sentence as a slam - if one wants to be an amateur scientist (I use amateur as in amateur astrologist - a hobbyist with a keen interest in understanding and helping the further the field) you still need to follow the accepted way things are review. You cannot make up your own protocols and then just announce they are science. Your work relies on too many assumptions, many of your tests are not experiment because they cannot be repeated by you or me or anyone, you conflate things and you toss around science carelessly. Just this post you states infer that I state that Waste-Away is a probiotic. I have NEVER said Waste-Away is a probiotic. In fact, I have said the opposite and have been battling the tendency of people in this hobby using the word incorrectly. All probiotics are bacteria but not all bacteria are probiotics. Contrary to 'experts' nitrifying bacteria are not probiotic., sludge degrading bacteria are not probiotics.

Finally, I think it is obvious you are bias. Yes, everyone has biases but you work to limit them in science. Yours are on full display. Just re-read your summary - If there's viable effective bacteria in Waste-Away that do anything important ....All the test I can come up with show the opposite" so your saying the bacteria are dead since you can't find viable bacteria. And at the same time you saying those dead bacteria aren't doing anything - well dead bacteria don't do anything (so by definition they are not effective - they're dead. You need to make a choice with your conclusion - 1) the bacteria are not viable or 2) the bacteria are viable but not effective or 3) #1 and #2 it's really the liquid causes any effect.

And here finally is where you fully show you bias when you go on to state (I have a hunch the same is true for some other bactria products). So you do one set of tests, get the results you wanted at the outset because you have no controls and didn't use the product correctly, draw wrong conclusion, and then extend those conclusion to other product you have not tested. That is not science - plain and simple.

 

[DrTim]

You have a good point about getting Dr. Tim’s input. I disagree with how to view Dr. Tim’s response.

The way a response is delivered sets the tone for all subsequent debate. A bellicose and disrespectful response is not going to engender a respectful future discussion. No one is exempt from showing common courtesy. I believe the cornerstone of R2R‘s success is the expectation that a post will be taken seriously and dealt with respectfully.

I get this is everyone's hobby but this is also my career, my reputation and my business. Someone calls me a liar, calls my products snake-oil (which is basically what has been done) and use bogus science to 'prove' it and then expect me to be kind and gentle. That is not going to happen.

 

[DrTim]

To everyone who keeps posting at Dr Tim, I am pretty sure he is not going to respond. If you look at his profile in 2 years he only posted like 45 messages. And I think he only came on this time because he was mad, because he felt that he and his product were being defemated

Miller535 - the reason I generally only response to posts that deal with my products is to set the record straight. For other posts some people think I am only trying to sell something. I wish it where different but the general feeling I get (I could wrong as posts no feeling) is that I am more unwelcome because I am a manufacturer trying to get you buy something rather than an experience hobbyist and scientist who has something to add.

 

[Miller535]

I get this is everyone's hobby but this is also my career, my reputation and my business. Someone calls me a liar, calls my products snake-oil (which is basically what has been done) and use bogus science to 'prove' it and then expect me to be kind and gentle. That is not going to happen.

In fairness to @taricha (who started the thread and ran the test's) , he did not call your product snake oil. He stated that he has used it, and that it does work, and that he would continue to use it, but that he believed it worked differently then what was described on the bottle (saying he thought it was more carbon source then bacteria.

 

[Miller535]

Miller535 - the reason I generally only response to posts that deal with my products is to set the record straight. For other posts some people think I am only trying to sell something. I wish it where different but the general feeling I get (I could wrong as posts no feeling) is that I am more unwelcome because I am a manufacturer trying to get you buy something rather than an experience hobbyist and scientist who has something to add.

I understand what you are saying. And I am sure there is some of that, but there are vendors on here like BRS who really are more of a store then a manufacturer and they seem pretty welcome here. I think you would be welcomed more then you seem to think. And I am sure you have valuable knowledge to share.

 

[Dan_P]

Louis Pasteur would be turning in his grave. If someone is going to run tests use the product as described. That was not done. And once again there are no controls. Before I run and show any tests - tell me this - are you going to believe them? You don't seem to believe what I say so why would pictures and graphs change that?

Dr. Tim, I very much appreciate your reply.

Let’s recap.

Everything @taricha tried, failed to show biological activity in WasteAway. You pointed out that WasteAway contained bacteria spores not bacteria “ready to go”. That’s great information. I am not sure how widely known that is.

Your second point was that activation and germination of these spores required a certain dilution rate to remove the effect of the inhibitor. I am pretty sure no one knew this about WasteAway. We also learned that if we don’t hit that concentration, WasteAway spores will fail to activate and germinate. At this point I wondered what the dose response curve looked like for this inhibitor and just how steep it was. Your critique implied that taricha’s dilution rates were the reason his experiments failed to show biological activity in WasteAway. That’s when I said show me the data Dr. Tim, that is the dose response curve, because what you said and what I know about dose response curves did not mesh.

But the dilution rate in many @taricha experiments that failed to show any biological activity followed the suggested dilution rate. The need for the inhibition dose response data now seems less important. What seems to be more important is a suggestion on how to demonstrate biological activity of WasteAway. Or maybe the correct question is how can the spores be activated in those case where the dilution rate was followed.

Thanks again,

Dan

 

[NeverlosT]

I get this is everyone's hobby but this is also my career, my reputation and my business. Someone calls me a liar, calls my products snake-oil (which is basically what has been done) and use bogus science to 'prove' it and then expect me to be kind and gentle. That is not going to happen.

Actually, that is exactly what should happen. A leader teaches, informs others, and even describes shortcomings of others, without appearing threatened or condescending. Acting defensive does nothing for your case other than give the appearance of a cornered animal, which is not a good appearance when you are clearly very well informed and an expert in this field.

I think that what people want is some data that explains the efficacy of your product, not just anecdotes or explanations of why not all sludge is digested, but a set of experiments, with controls as you describe, would work wonders.

There is a reason that the BRS "experiments" are so popular. While at times imperfect, they are attempting to inform with data and controls instead of just anecdotes in threads, which is admirable to say the least.

So you have described the reasons why the OPs study was insufficient, which sound reasonable. Can we describe what would be a sufficient study? Think of the sales potential when your product is proven effective by a third party, the best kind of advertisement there is!

I am thankful to the OP for providing information, and to you for refuting that information, and all of this smacks of just what you are describing... scientific peer review! Excellent work from all sides.