Vibrant Killing Corals..

[Wolters_88]

Really wish I had seen this before. I just put 3ML in my tank too and the corals instantly all closed up other then the Zoas. My Hollywood stunner went from blue with green dots to red and dead looking in about 6 hours. Acro and birds nest look like they are already dead too. Favia all looks terrible. Think I’m screwed. Instantly carbon dosed and did a 20% water change.

 

[TTNuge]

Really wish I had seen this before. I just put 3ML in my tank too and the corals instantly all closed up other then the Zoas. My Hollywood stunner went from blue with green dots to red and dead looking in about 6 hours. Acro and birds nest look like they are already dead too. Favia all looks terrible. Think I’m screwed. Instantly carbon dosed and did a 20% water change.

It could be the Vibrant...... It could be that this is your first reef tank, it's a little over a month old and you've been unsuccessful keeping fish alive, much less corals. But hey, it could be the Vibrant.

 

[Wolters_88]

It could be the Vibrant...... It could be that this is your first reef tank, it's a little over a month old and you've been unsuccessful keeping fish alive, much less corals. But hey, it could be the Vibrant.

Where did you get that my tanks a month old? The guy I got the fish from lost all 30 of the other clowns he had left from brook too. Seems pretty cut and dry. I put this in and 6 hours later corals are dying. Also the same thing with zoas that others are saying. They are all fine like everyone else is saying happened to them. Literally nothing has been done other then the water change yesterday and my parameters are...

Amonia - 0
Nitrate - 0
Nitrite - 2
Phos - .65
Calcium - 532
Alk - 9.3
Mag -1320
Salinity - 1.025
Ph - 8.32

 

[TTNuge]

Where did you get that my tanks a month old?

From your post a month ago stating your tank is still cycling.

It's just real hard to believe that such a small addition would have such negative effects, in such a short time, when so many others use the products (including myself) with success, or at least no coral die off.

 

[Wolters_88]

From your post a month ago stating your tank is still cycling.

It's just real hard to believe that such a small addition would have such negative effects, in such a short time, when so many others use the products (including myself) with success, or at least no coral die off.

No clue why I would have said that as in 6 days it will be two months old... which I do realize is not long in this hobby. But attached you will see the before and after pictures of my Duncan and Hollywood.

 

[35ppt]

Where did you get that my tanks a month old? The guy I got the fish from lost all 30 of the other clowns he had left from brook too. Seems pretty cut and dry. I put this in and 6 hours later corals are dying. Also the same thing with zoas that others are saying. They are all fine like everyone else is saying happened to them. Literally nothing has been done other then the water change yesterday and my parameters are...

Amonia - 0
Nitrate - 0
Nitrite - 2
Phos - .65
Calcium - 532
Alk - 9.3
Mag -1320
Salinity - 1.025
Ph - 8.32

Nitrate - 0 You want to have some measurable amount of No3 1-15ppm is my traget.
Nitrite - 2 Should not have any Nitrite if tank is cycled.
Phos - .65 Too high, .02 - .08ppm is my target.
Calcium - 532 Too high, 400-420 is my target.

I would suspect parameter issues before I would suspect Vibrant. I accidentally overdosed Vibrant when I first tried it, I was dosing daily not weekly for a week or more... All that happened was a cyano bloom.

 

[Wolters_88]

Nitrate - 0 You want to have some measurable amount of No3 1-15ppm is my traget.
Nitrite - 2 Should not have any Nitrite if tank is cycled.
Phos - .65 Too high, .02 - .08ppm is my target.
Calcium - 532 Too high, 400-420 is my target.

I would suspect parameter issues before I would suspect Vibrant. I accidentally overdosed Vibrant when I first tried it, I was dosing daily not weekly for a week or more... All that happened was a cyano bloom.

I got those two backwards. Should be
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 2

 

[MnFish1]

I am a fan of vibrant for killing algae - I am not a fan for its affects on some coral - especially if you have a high bio load. For example - the corals I see don't look 'dead'. They look stressed - hopefully they will recover. But - If lets say you added vibrant bacteria - and it started dissolving organics in your water - you may have had rapid 'local' nutrient changes that affected your coral.

 

[Wolters_88]

I am a fan of vibrant for killing algae - I am not a fan for its affects on some coral - especially if you have a high bio load. For example - the corals I see don't look 'dead'. They look stressed - hopefully they will recover. But - If lets say you added vibrant bacteria - and it started dissolving organics in your water - you may have had rapid 'local' nutrient changes that affected your coral.

Should I do a few more water changes? Also, should I just dose say 1ml every other week instead to counter this issue?

 

[MnFish1]

Should I do a few more water changes? Also, should I just dose say 1ml every other week instead to counter this issue?

Dont know - honestly - I changed a bunch of water - lost 50% of my coral - some is doing fine. Im just waiting it out

 

[zalick]

...At this point my belief is something in the bacteria of vibrant had a drastically negative effect on my corals causing a lot of death and damage. ...

Sorry for your loss. I tend to agree with your thinking and I'm writing this post for others who read this thread.
---
Just because lots of people have replied saying "Vibrant didn't kill my corals" does not mean that Vibrant won't kill your corals. The converse is also true.

However, I think BigRich's encounter is fairly controlled and shows that Vibrant did directly or indirectly, cause his coral death.

Corals are very sensitive creatures and have evolved over millions of years to live in a very particular environment.

Now, Vibrant is a bacteria culture. Bacteria can replicate INCREDIBLY fast. So anyone who says "He only dosed X ml in his tank, so that can't be the issue" doesn't understand bacteria.

A drop of a bacterial culture, placed in an ideal environment, can certainly replicate to incredible levels in 24hrs.

This doesn't mean the Vibrant bacteria is inherently good or bad for a reef tank. But it does mean that EVERY reef tank is different and Vibrant likely behaves differently in every tank.

I would proceed with caution and eyes wide open when choosing to dose an unknown bacteria in your tank.

Disclosure: My wife is a bio-chemist and my FIL is a PhD virologist who's spent decades studying bacteria and viruses. I've discussed this issue with them both extensively, before forming the opinion above.

 

[Mcsheff]

my fluval evo 2 years old, had a little hair algae outbreak so dosed for thr first time today, bare in mind I've used this in a different tank in the past to no ill effect.
20 minutes after dosing my clowns could not breath and both died 10 minutes later panting upside down, corals look awful accept the mushrooms, my candy cane has bubbles coming up through tearing its flesh. Never been so angry or felt sick.
Is it possible they are handing out the odd bad batch??

 

[AquAttila]

This is interesting. I was skeptical to use this product to be honest as I did read some scary reviews and like anything I don't want to put anything in my tank for the heck of it. I was getting real sick of darn hair algae growing on rocks - not to mention my nutrients are fairly low. Anyway, I tend to gradually dose anything over a few days to the recommended dose. As an example, my tank is 210 gal w/ maybe 70 gal sump. - with live rock, I estimate 200 gal volume of water. The recommended dosing vibrant is 1 ml per 10 gal. So I dosed 10 ml first day and another 10 ml second day. I did not see any negative impact on anything. My plan is to continue dosing once a week.

 

[jdTrader]

my fluval evo 2 years old, had a little hair algae outbreak so dosed for thr first time today, bare in mind I've used this in a different tank in the past to no ill effect.
20 minutes after dosing my clowns could not breath and both died 10 minutes later panting upside down, corals look awful accept the mushrooms, my candy cane has bubbles coming up through tearing its flesh. Never been so angry or felt sick.
Is it possible they are handing out the odd bad batch??

What is your tank size, how much did you pour in and where did you pour in, how much flow and surface agitation do you have, are you running a skimmer or did you turn it off. This is a start. without more details hard to help.

 

[AquAttila]

Jd, actually although I did not have negative results with vibrant. I did turn skimmer off as well as UV, but left ozone generator on. I was going to send the company an e-mail asking if they recommend ozone, UV and skimmer off for a few hours after dosing. The surface agitation is a good point... maybe that is something that folks that experience negative results may not have sufficient agitation. I know I have a lot - 2 gyre pumps on end of tank pointing to surface of tank.

 

[Luckyduck]

That's horrible and how frustrating!! I've never used Vibrant. I use Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter Clean, Razor Marine and Phosphat-E to control algae outbreaks it works like a charm!

 

[AquAttila]

I have tried microbacter clean and didn't do anything for me at all! goes to show you that products just work differently for everyone. I actually had a major issue with Phosphat-E and after dosing it killed all my anenomes. I do blame my phosphate test kit though as I think the test showed higher then usual and perhaps using phosphat-E reduced phosphates way too much. I will say that vibrant does have something amazing in it as in a few days my tank looked crystal clear . I think the gimmick of saying it will clean up tank in 12 hours is inaccurate but perhaps a few days would be more in line with how I saw the impact of it. Based on the BRS investigates - in about 9 weeks I should see complete hair algae gone. We shall see!

 

[Back where it all began]

This is an odd day. I use a product called Remediation in my tank to add some biodiversity. My new bottle arrived today with a different type of cap and no safety seal.
It also has a funky smell that it never had before.
Impression is that this is a bad batch, a returned productvetc.
My point is if you have never used a product before, you don’t know what it should appear like, smell like etc.
Who knows what quality controls our products are really subjected to and how they have been handled before we get them.
I’m calling the manufacturer find out as I’m sure others have told you to do.

 

[Scorpius]

Vibrant doesn't just kill fish. I've been dosing it for months over the recommended dosage and have had no fish or coral loss I can attribute to Vibrant.

 

[Zeal]

lol, I'm dosing vibrant in attempt to get rid of lettuce algae and all it has done was make it easier to remove...

I've tried everything to get rid of this ****