Documenting Vibrant experience (for people searching in the future).

[Robert Binz]

Issue: 5.5g budget build with pesky hair algae. Cant keep nutrients up in the tank. Dose just to keep them measurable.

Day 1: dosed 0.5 ml Vibrant “saltwater”—they aren’t allowed to sell the reef version on Amazon according to the company.

Day: 5:
• water is extremely clear
• there are bubbles forming in the GHA and on the glass. Don’t know if this is the Vibrant or early Dinos.
• the tips of some patches of GHA are turning grey and looking weak. Other patches look fine.
• dosed 1ml nitrate and 0.4 ml phosphate on Day 4. Both were undetectable on day 5. Dosed 3ml nitrate and 1 ml phosphate on Day 5. Trying hard to prevent dinos.

 

[lapin]

Nice of you to document this

 

[windemerejack]

I'll be watching this with interest. Any chance of some pics to document things as well?

 

[Robert Binz]

I'll be watching this with interest. Any chance of some pics to document things as well?

Good idea! I will take some tonight! It’s tough on the iphone but better than nothing haha

 

[windemerejack]

As the saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words.

 

[Dkmoo]

Issue: 5.5g budget build with pesky hair algae. Cant keep nutrients up in the tank. Dose just to keep them measurable.

Day 1: dosed 0.5 ml Vibrant “saltwater”—they aren’t allowed to sell the reef version on Amazon according to the company.

Day: 5:
• water is extremely clear
• there are bubbles forming in the GHA and on the glass. Don’t know if this is the Vibrant or early Dinos.
• the tips of some patches of GHA are turning grey and looking weak. Other patches look fine.
• dosed 1ml nitrate and 0.4 ml phosphate on Day 4. Both were undetectable on day 5. Dosed 3ml nitrate and 1 ml phosphate on Day 5. Trying hard to prevent dinos.

careful with dosing No3/po4 - "tank too clean" doesn't cause dinos - what causes dinos is an unstable biome that lacks nutrient competition from algae, benefitial bacteria, pods, corals, etc.. The presence of detectible no3/po4 doesn't prevent dinos if you don't have things that can out-compete the nutrient. the "too clean water" dino risk is more often in cases where you use medication to sterilize/nuke the entire microbial biome and the lack of natural check/balance leads to dino explosion.

In your case, since it's unclear what's absorbing the no3/po4 (could be the GHA), constantly dosing it could be counter productive. Vibrant is a bacteria based algae treatment so the idea here is that it would slowly eat away at GHA and release nutrients back into the water column in the form of dissolved organics that can be re-uptaken by your corals/filterfeeders/other beneficial bactera. Key is to go slow so that the nutrient competition vacuum vacated by your GHA is not immediately taken up by other bad stuff - that's where Dinos and cyano blooms happen from people that have bad reactions from using Vibrant.

 

[RobertTheNurse]

Hey. Like you I was battling GHA . I used HALF recommended dose for CLEAN tank.

IMO --- the stuff works. I stopped using it though after about 8 weeks for 2 reasons.

1. Most GHA was gone
2. My nutrients plummeted from 10 to 2.

One person on here made a good point. Do I want to rely on manufactured specimens for a greater part of my tank life or allow things to take their course?

Makes sense. Unless I let things get out of control GHA is not only normal but beneficial. That being said, hopefully with some manual labor on my part and time...corraline will for the most part out compete my algae issues...

Every tank is different. I've just upped my CUC.

 

[Tcdrummajor]

Issue: 5.5g budget build with pesky hair algae. Cant keep nutrients up in the tank. Dose just to keep them measurable.

Day 1: dosed 0.5 ml Vibrant “saltwater”—they aren’t allowed to sell the reef version on Amazon according to the company.

Day: 5:
• water is extremely clear
• there are bubbles forming in the GHA and on the glass. Don’t know if this is the Vibrant or early Dinos.
• the tips of some patches of GHA are turning grey and looking weak. Other patches look fine.
• dosed 1ml nitrate and 0.4 ml phosphate on Day 4. Both were undetectable on day 5. Dosed 3ml nitrate and 1 ml phosphate on Day 5. Trying hard to prevent dinos.

I bought the saltwater off Amazon because couldn’t find the reef. I have a 55, should I be doing 1 ml for every ten gallons?

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

This thread is mind blowing