Vibrant freaking me out..

[MnFish1]

@MnFish1 In order to understand more - did you measured the nitrite when you get high nitrate readings? Rise of nitrate from 5 to > 120 ppm during a couple of days indicate that the nitrification process is in disorder and you have high nitrites instead.

Sincerely Lasse

Hi @Lasse - Sorry - it was about a 2-3 week period between Nitrate measurements - not a couple days. No I didnt measure nitrites. At that point there was also no indication of a problem - except a huge piece of GSP that I have had over 10 years was not opening. After a week - nearly all of the acropora had RTN'd. Also did several large water changes - and the nitrate fell to the appropriate level - and didnt rise again (i.e. 50% water change - level dropped 50% - another 50% water change - the nitrate level dropped to 25% etc). The GSP did not open for 3 months - now is coming back.

 

[MnFish1]

If you have a large algae outbreak and just add Vibrant you will have a large die off of algae leading to a nitrate spike which will kill coral. You have to use Vibrant as part of you arsenal and not as a panacea.

I did not have a large amount of algae - only scattered 'here and there' - was a chaeto and a couple places of bubble algae (now all of that is gone btw)

 

[Scorpius]

I did not have a large amount of algae - only scattered 'here and there' - was a chaeto and a couple places of bubble algae (now all of that is gone btw)

It's weird how some folks have major issues and most of us dont. I wonder what the underlying issue is for those who have issues with Vibrant.

 

[X-37B]

Well I dosed Vibrant early on in my 120 to kill turf and it worked well but I only had a few coral.
Fast forward to today. Tank is 13 months old with some hair algae.
Dosed 10ml a week 3 weeks ago and have now stopped.
3 of my 50+ corals have become pale, not the whole coral but parts. 2 of the 3 are softball size.
Po4 .02
No3 5.
No3 has run <2 for over 10 months now as I log everything daily.

My take on it.
It somehow competes or eats the zoo's.
To me its the only thing that makes sense.
Introduced more cleanup crew yesterday and will just have to let it run its course and hope it does not get worse.
I do not carbon dose or do scheduled water changes but one may be needed now.

 

[MnFish1]

Well I dosed Vibrant early on in my 120 to kill turf and it worked well but I only had a few coral.
Fast forward to today. Tank is 13 months old with some hair algae.
Dosed 10ml a week 3 weeks ago and have now stopped.
3 of my 50+ corals have become pale, not the whole coral but parts. 2 of the 3 are softball size.
Po4 .02
No3 5.
No3 has run <2 for over 10 months now as I log everything daily.

My take on it.
It somehow competes or eats the zoo's.
To me its the only thing that makes sense.
Introduced more cleanup crew yesterday and will just have to let it run its course and hope it does not get worse.
I do not carbon dose or do scheduled water changes but one may be needed now.

I think in some corals it competes - and then once part of the coral starts to die - a bit of a cascade can start. It actually works great against algae - but I had the same problem as you. I did the same as you I dosed it 10 cc/week once a week (which is 'fine' for a 'dirty aquarium') - My mistake - I didnt completely take into account the rock volume, etc - I also stopped my skimmer (which is not required according to the instructions that I see) - and my tank probably didnt meet the criteria for 'dirty' - thus I overdosed. Green star polyps that didnt open up for 3 months (that I've had for more than 10 years) - etc closed up after a couple weeks of dosing. A green slimer that was about 2 feet long paled and then completely died, etc. The good news - is that with carbon and water changes - things improved (most of the 'hard' corals did not come back. Hope you have good luck. Note - I'm not trying to bad-mouth the product - I think I used it improperly for my tan.

 

[X-37B]

I think in some corals it competes - and then once part of the coral starts to die - a bit of a cascade can start. It actually works great against algae - but I had the same problem as you. I did the same as you I dosed it 10 cc/week once a week (which is 'fine' for a 'dirty aquarium') - My mistake - I didnt completely take into account the rock volume, etc - I also stopped my skimmer (which is not required according to the instructions that I see) - and my tank probably didnt meet the criteria for 'dirty' - thus I overdosed. Green star polyps that didnt open up for 3 months (that I've had for more than 10 years) - etc closed up after a couple weeks of dosing. A green slimer that was about 2 feet long paled and then completely died, etc. The good news - is that with carbon and water changes - things improved (most of the 'hard' corals did not come back. Hope you have good luck. Note - I'm not trying to bad-mouth the product - I think I used it improperly for my tan.

Yea my blue tort faded a little, tenuis has 2 branches that are brown and my tri color the same.
Just changed carbon and will do 10 gal water change by this weekend.
Weird stuff as all others look good.
I hope I caught it in time.

 

[MnFish1]

Yea my blue tort faded a little, tenuis has 2 branches that are brown and my tri color the same.
Just changed carbon and will do 10 gal water change by this weekend.
Weird stuff as all others look good.
I hope I caught it in time.

Hopefully its just 'coincidence'. I did talk to someone else that had a similar issue - but there are lots of people who swear by it and have had no problem.

 

[X-37B]

Hopefully its just 'coincidence'. I did talk to someone else that had a similar issue - but there are lots of people who swear by it and have had no problem.

I will update this in a couple weeks.
Last Friday was my last 10ml dose.
Tank and sump volume is about 120g's.
I also wonder how even each bottle is in the amount of product supplied?

 

[MnFish1]

I will update this in a couple weeks.
Last Friday was my last 10ml dose.
Tank and sump volume is about 120g's.
I also wonder how even each bottle is in the amount of product supplied?

I dont understand the last sentence - but - yeah - thats the size of my tank

 

[homer1475]

Only issue I ever had with vibrant, was cyano, once I started to ween off it.

Corals all thrived once the algae was gone. I started it for bubble algae, but it cleared it everywhere else too. Never experienced pale or dying corals, and I was doing twice weekly doses. Went through 4 bottles with no ill effects. I no longer use it, and haven't for several months now. No bubble algae has returned, but I still have a persitant cyano issue(I think it might finally be clearing up) even though nutrients are in check with nitrates around 2 - 5ppm, and phosphates around .08 - .1.

I think the biggest problem with people using vibrant is they don't keep an eye on nutrients. Vibrant can and will eventually tank nutrients if not keeping an eye on them.

Doesn't help those that do have issues, but it's my experience using it.

 

[X-37B]

I dont understand the last sentence - but - yeah - thats the size of my tank

Sorry, I was reffering to how consistant the product is from bottle to bottle, i.e. are some stronger than others since so many people have good results as I did then the next bottle mave have been much stronger.
Just a thought.

 

[MnFish1]

Only issue I ever had with vibrant, was cyano, once I started to ween off it.

Corals all thrived once the algae was gone. I started it for bubble algae, but it cleared it everywhere else too. Never experienced pale or dying corals, and I was doing twice weekly doses. Went through 4 bottles with no ill effects. I no longer use it, and haven't for several months now. No bubble algae has returned, but I still have a persitant cyano issue(I think it might finally be clearing up) even though nutrients are in check with nitrates around 2 - 5ppm, and phosphates around .08 - .1.

I think the biggest problem with people using vibrant is they don't keep an eye on nutrients. Vibrant can and will eventually tank nutrients if not keeping an eye on them.

Doesn't help those that do have issues, but it's my experience using it.

Interesting - 3 weeks after I used it - my nitrates were >100. So at least in my case - nutrients weren't the problem. (they had been 5 before starting it) - of course - some of the nitrate might have been from the coral death - but it seemed to rise steadily..