Meredith's 180 In-wall happy place

Brew12 · Jan 17, 2018

melypr1985 said:
I used vibrant at the shop and ended up with cyano in both tanks I used it in. I wonder what I did wrong if it works so well for others. Hmm. I simply followed the directions on the bottle. Any tips? I still have some left.

My fuge light is a Fluval LED. It's done wonders for years..... until now.

Vibrant is a very powerful nitrate reducer. Lots of people who use it get cyano, which I also did. Best advice I can give is to start slow. If your nitrates crash faster than your phosphates that throws the cyano door wide open. I would do one regular dose in your DT and measure your nitrates 2 days later. Odds are they will start climbing. Then it becomes a balancing game to control the rate that you kill algae off with your ability to remove nutrients. It seems the people who jump to 2 doses a week run into cyano very quickly.

Didn't you upgrade your DT lighting with the new tank? I could never grow chaeto in my fuge until I did a serious light upgrade. Now, it grows like a weed. Hardly any algae in my DT with a large CuC, a few tangs, and dosing Vibrant every other week. And I am a heavy feeder.

revhtree · Jan 17, 2018

Oooh a beautiful Bellus!

Tanks is looking good. I'm jealous of your white sand! HA!

Myk · Jan 17, 2018

Ah! Sometimes I miss the obvious! What kind of bulbs are you running in the MH rig? I am not terribly familiar with the Rapid LED, but sometimes knocking back some of the "white" channels and ramping up the blue and UV channels can help with algae issues.

Also having some bacteria additions to out compete the cyano might help too. We like to use the Fauna Marin bacto reef balls on the regular in our tanks and dose the tanks with ESV transition elements. Seems to keep things in good order.

melypr1985 · Jan 17, 2018

Ok. As of right now (and I admit it's been a while since I tested my alk and it's lower than I'd like. I need to adjust my doser apparently)

Alk 7.8
Ca 500
MG 1360
Nitrate 0
Phosphate .08
PH 8.07

Myk · Jan 17, 2018

Alk. and pH are just slightly low. Do you have a CO2 scrubber? Maybe give that a go before making adjustments. Other than the Ca. that is.

Assuming you are using a 2 part system, what products are you using to dose with? Do you dose any trace element along with it?

melypr1985 · Jan 17, 2018

Brew12 said:
Vibrant is a very powerful nitrate reducer. Lots of people who use it get cyano, which I also did. Best advice I can give is to start slow. If your nitrates crash faster than your phosphates that throws the cyano door wide open. I would do one regular dose in your DT and measure your nitrates 2 days later. Odds are they will start climbing. Then it becomes a balancing game to control the rate that you kill algae off with your ability to remove nutrients. It seems the people who jump to 2 doses a week run into cyano very quickly.

Didn't you upgrade your DT lighting with the new tank? I could never grow chaeto in my fuge until I did a serious light upgrade. Now, it grows like a weed. Hardly any algae in my DT with a large CuC, a few tangs, and dosing Vibrant every other week. And I am a heavy feeder.

Hmmm... I may need to try it again, but my nitrates are zero. I realize that's probably a false negative given the amount of algae I have. Thinking about this makes my head hurt.

revhtree said:
Oooh a beautiful Bellus!

Tanks is looking good. I'm jealous of your white sand! HA!

Yes!! I love the bellus! I tried to get a male with her, but they didn't send him and now they dont have any at the supplier level.

The sand is only white because of the Gyre xF250 and the diamond goby.

Myk said:
What kind of bulbs are you running in the MH rig?

They are reefbright bulbs and I believe they are 250 watts each.

melypr1985 · Jan 17, 2018

Myk said:
Do you have a CO2 scrubber?

I do not, though I could potentially get the air intake for the skimmer to bring air in from the outside. I think I'll work on that today.

Myk said:
Assuming you are using a 2 part system, what products are you using to dose with? Do you dose any trace element along with it?

I'm using red sea, dosing calcium, magnesium and alk. Magnesium is dosed by hand since it rarely falls much. My calcium shouldn't be that high so an adjustment on that pump can be done quickly. The alk should be around 9, but I hate to start dosing so much into the tank. anyway, One thing at a time. I'll get skimmer connected to the outside today and see how well that helps.

Brew12 · Jan 17, 2018

melypr1985 said:
Hmmm... I may need to try it again, but my nitrates are zero. I realize that's probably a false negative given the amount of algae I have. Thinking about this makes my head hurt.

Yup. I would add one dose and then test nitrates after a day or two to see if it starts climbing. If it does, not only will that help prevent cyano (Lasse pointed out some studies to me that show some strains of cyan cannot form mats with NO3 over 3ppm) but it is a sign that the Vibrant will be effective since the algae isn't consuming the nitrates as quickly.

Myk · Jan 17, 2018

Good call. Start with the fresh air first before doing any dosing increases.

wowkingjames · Jan 17, 2018

Your set up is awesome, I have a abalones too and he is awesome as well.

melypr1985 · Jan 17, 2018

Brew12 said:
Yup. I would add one dose and then test nitrates after a day or two to see if it starts climbing. If it does, not only will that help prevent cyano (Lasse pointed out some studies to me that show some strains of cyan cannot form mats with NO3 over 3ppm) but it is a sign that the Vibrant will be effective since the algae isn't consuming the nitrates as quickly.

Alright. I'll give it another shot and go slowly with updates to be sure I don't mess up my tank more than it already is. lol Thanks

Myk said:
Good call. Start with the fresh air first before doing any dosing increases.

I'm working on it. It's 27 degrees today but I opened the window in the fish room a little for now. I'm looking for parts to be able to connect the intake to the outside.

wowkingjames said:
Your set up is awesome, I have a abalones too and he is awesome as well.

Thanks! Yes, I LOVE abalones!! I haven't been able to get any into the shop in the last 4 months or so, but I'm looking!!!

melypr1985 · Jan 17, 2018

Well... I got the air intake of the skimmer going to the outside. It's kind of a temporary fix until my husband and I can come up with something else more permanent. The good news is that my PH is up to 8.13 so that's something!