Vibrant Killing Corals..

[Mickeyt1reef]

I used the recommended dose for a bubble out break. My corals do not seem very happy. Polyp extension is gone and corals browning up. Skipped a week added one more time with water change

 

[VA5]

It was definitely not because @your corals starved”. That would take weeks not 24 hrs.
It may be something totally unrelated.
Anyway water change and carbon are my go to if die off happens

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

I would agree that lack of nutrients would not kill your corals in 24hrs . If your corals were fine 24 hrs ago before you put in a minuscule amount of 3ml in a 100g and it died the next day , I would say that bottle is contaminated.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

@BigRich, I agree with others that have stated that there is something else going on. Like @Tuan’s Reef said, maybe the bottle was contaminated. Maybe something happened that you were not aware of. If you tank is 100 gallons, how much more water is in the sump?

Using 30% or less of Vibrant wouldn't, IMO, cause your coral to start dying in 12 hours, nor take out 50% of your coral in 24 hours.

It will be interesting to see what the ICP test shows.

Have you considered adding 1ml of Vibrant to 1 gallon of tank water in a separate bucket and then run tests on that sample. I would be interested to see if there was any ammonia or copper in the water. Those are things that are easy for us to test for without ICP and would tell you if the Vibrant bottle had those contaminants.

 

[AquAttila]

Wow, this sucks... so sorry to hear that and nothing more frustrating then losing expensive corals! I will say that I actually gave this vibrant stuff, but luckly in a QT tank and fish only. It was the craziest thing as it turned the water so cloudy and think it actually wiped out beneficial bacteria. I was monitoring the nitrite and ammonia as I had fish in the QT and 2 days after I lost 3 of 5 Pyramid butterflies! I did a few water changes and left with 2 of the fish seems to be doing ok. This is a lesson learned and glad I did not put this crap in my display tank.

 

[intricate_reefer]

Really sorry your having issues, I would be heart broken. I agree it has to be contaminated or something else. I’m on my second round of dosing vibrant. I dose 2ml twice a week on 20g of water volume. My nitrates have stayed the same at 2 and phosphate have risen. Only ill effect to corals I notice when dosing is the tank is taking up a little less Alk, so I’m guessing the coral aren’t growing quite as fast when dosing. Each time when I stop consumption goes back up. No effect to my coralline at all. My tank is full of chalices, favias, acans, and zoas.

 

[User]

Wow, this sucks... so sorry to hear that and nothing more frustrating then losing expensive corals! I will say that I actually gave this vibrant stuff, but luckly in a QT tank and fish only. It was the craziest thing as it turned the water so cloudy and think it actually wiped out beneficial bacteria. I was monitoring the nitrite and ammonia as I had fish in the QT and 2 days after I lost 3 of 5 Pyramid butterflies! I did a few water changes and left with 2 of the fish seems to be doing ok. This is a lesson learned and glad I did not put this crap in my display tank.

Why would you need to dose vibrant in a QT tank? If you're doing it properly, it would have been pristine just before you added the butterflies.

 

[Billldg]

@BigRich, sorry your going thru these issues, but I also hate to see blame being placed in a place it may or may not be. So I dosed 10 ml vibrant into my 120 gal tank today, I was going to try it anyway, let’s see what happens. I use HW marine reefer mix salt, I had just done a 10 gal water change yesterday, so my orp was already low, around 280, usually around 390, after dosing it didn’t change. Nitrates before dosing was N03 15 and P04 at .05. Alk at 8.2, Cal at 450, Mag at 1510, temp at 78, ph at 8.18, Salinity at 1.026. I am using vibrant to get rid of some cyano. Let’s see what happens and maybe we can find the cause for your issues.

 

[DSC reef]

The problem with vibrant is it will not affect every tank the same. I honestly don't see how some can't accept that vibrant is the cause or (could be). I was a very early adopter of vibrant before it was even mentioned on R2R and had success with it in one tank while it wreaked havoc in another. It is very powerful and can affect each tank differently whether it be nutrient related, ect. Always dosed half the recommended amounts and corals suffered in a 75 gallon thriving reef tank.

 

[Mateusz]

I had some success with vibrant one of my 75's that had an outbreak. Started out with 10ml biweekly. To be honest the first 3 weeks I felt like I was wasting my time because I didn't see any noticable difference but then everything started to clear up and the tank over the next month looked better then ever. I was so impressed I started dosing 7.5ml weekly and over time dropped the dose to about 3ml a week. Then eventually stopped treatment. Tank has had no issues since and I would use vibrant again

 

[ou12004]

I tried the recommended dose of Vibrant and had 3 expensive SPS frags die with in 2 days of using it. I didn't change any of my other parameters, same kalk, salt in water changes and lighting. There was a very direct response in a negative way, it is not worth the risk to me.

 

[BigRich]

Just wanted to give everyone a update, I’m still waiting for water test results from Triton & Icp analysis. Decided to send out two water samples to two different labs. Hopefully get results this week or next the latest. Lost a couple more corals that lost polyp extension(started about 16-24hrs after dosing) then went brown then finally dying off. I tried very hard to save these, tried amino acids/brightwell restor/feedings but nothing helped. Been really disappointed/disgusted so I haven’t been checking on posts here.

I don’t think the vibrant was contaminated in any way. I believe, if it was, my fish but even more specifically my cleaner shrimp/fire shrimp/other inverts would have died. They, thankfully, haven’t showed any negative impacts from the vibrant.

At this point I’m hoping my howewrecker and Walt Disney make it. If they don’t my feeling right now is to change the tank into a aggressive non reef system. I just can’t imagine starting from almost scratch with this massive loss of money and time. Needless to say one of the most frustrating times in the hobby for me. Here’s a photo of my CB jelly bean favia dying. Started to lose it’s beautiful cheery red color within 24hrs and kept degrading. I bought it direct on eBay from CB so you know how small this frag started. I also lost a jfox burning banana stylo. Also lost others just too disappointed to get into it.

 

[BigRich]

I tried the recommended dose of Vibrant and had 3 expensive SPS frags die with in 2 days of using it. I didn't change any of my other parameters, same kalk, salt in water changes and lighting. There was a very direct response in a negative way, it is not worth the risk to me.

I’m sorry for your loss. Hopefully our stories can at least give fellow hobbyist a idea of the risk associated. Once again sorry!

 

[BigRich]

Hi everyone,
Wanted to provide a update. I got my results back from ICP-Analysis yesterday. Everything is fine except low Iodine and Br. I will post a screenshot of it here. So nothing sticks out for something being contaminated in my tank/etc. 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. Since my last posts it seems the remaining corals are okay. I've been running carbon and doing water changes. A very expensive lesson for me and all I would tell others is be careful using this product. Almost forgot to say, interestingly it's been almost a year since my last testing and not much has changed which is good. I really wanted to try and test every 3 months. BTW the post office lost my triton test that I sent out at the same time. I was really hoping to compare those results. Good thing I sent out two different samples at least!

 

[NaClH20Reefer]

Just figured I’d chime in.

My parameters for a 90gal SPS dominate tank are as follows:
PO4- .02 ppm
NO3- 5-10ppm
Alk- 8.1 dKh
Calc- 440
Mg- 1250

These params hardly ever fluctuate. My ALK fluctuates maybe .1-.2dKh a day.
Daily I dose flatworm stop x and acropower.

I dosed vibrant 2 days ago. Because although my PO4 is low I have some green algae growing thicker than I like on some parts of the rock and my glass has been getting green faster since I cut the fuge light down some.

As of 24 hours ago my tyree pink lemonade and my Strawberry shortcake showed signs of STN. It seemed to have slowed some now but coming home this evening I noticed that my Aussie toxic slimer and my MC Medusa are severely stressed and looking terrible.
My acans are puffy like they usually are.

At first I thought it may have been from a temp spike as my temp usually runs 79-80 and it reach about 82 Wednesday. However, after reading and asking several of my local reefers I do not think that is an issue. Therefore Vibrant is the only other thing that’s changed and the one most of us are leaning towards.

No cleaning around the house, no addition of coral not even a water change since last Sunday.

Here are some photos.
As you can see in the photo I took of my SSC the Aussie slimer was in good condition and now it is not.

 

[BigRich]

Just figured I’d chime in.

My parameters for a 90gal SPS dominate tank are as follows:
PO4- .02 ppm
NO3- 5-10ppm
Alk- 8.1 dKh
Calc- 440
Mg- 1250

These params hardly ever fluctuate. My ALK fluctuates maybe .1-.2dKh a day.
Daily I dose flatworm stop x and acropower.

I dosed vibrant 2 days ago. Because although my PO4 is low I have some green algae growing thicker than I like on some parts of the rock and my glass has been getting green faster since I cut the fuge light down some.

As of 24 hours ago my tyree pink lemonade and my Strawberry shortcake showed signs of STN. It seemed to have slowed some now but coming home this evening I noticed that my Aussie toxic slimer and my MC Medusa are severely stressed and looking terrible.
My acans are puffy like they usually are.

At first I thought it may have been from a temp spike as my temp usually runs 79-80 and it reach about 82 Wednesday. However, after reading and asking several of my local reefers I do not think that is an issue. Therefore Vibrant is the only other thing that’s changed and the one most of us are leaning towards.

No cleaning around the house, no addition of coral not even a water change since last Sunday.

Here are some photos.
As you can see in the photo I took of my SSC the Aussie slimer was in good condition and now it is not.

Sorry to hear this. I hope our postings and information help the community realize that this chemical is not 100% coral safe. It may work for person X but person Y may lose a lot of corals/money/time. I provided step by step information in this thread from when I started noticing issues all the way through the death of many corals, the water test results, and that showed nothing abnormal in my water chemistry that would have caused a massive die off. I did water change, ran carbon, and still lost many corals.

I agree that temp fluctuation would not cause that stn/etc. Hopefully you will have better luck and won't lose any. I'm sorry to hear this but hopefully our posts give others caution.

 

[NaClH20Reefer]

I just fragged off a piece of Aussie slimer, in hopes that I can save one piece of it. Within the last hour or two it has totally transitioned into RTN.
Latest picture.

 

[BigRich]

I just fragged off a piece of Aussie slimer, in hopes that I can save one piece of it. Within the last hour or two it has totally transitioned into RTN.
Latest picture.

Yeah I would frag anything that you start seeing signs on. I wish I was more aggressive in fragging early. I don’t know if it would have made a difference but it’s definitely worth a shot. Hope it works for you

 

[Robcope]

I have been dosing 5 ml (60 Gallons including sump) every two weeks for about two and a half months. Favias, Favites, Chalice, Mushroom, zoanthids, and green star polyps are doing great. The water is crystal clear. Out of the 6 tanks in my house, it is by far the best looking. Understanding, the other five are freshwater. I started with a half does for 6 weeks, then went up to the 5ml.

 

[MnFish1]

The problem with vibrant is it will not affect every tank the same. I honestly don't see how some can't accept that vibrant is the cause or (could be). I was a very early adopter of vibrant before it was even mentioned on R2R and had success with it in one tank while it wreaked havoc in another. It is very powerful and can affect each tank differently whether it be nutrient related, ect. Always dosed half the recommended amounts and corals suffered in a 75 gallon thriving reef tank.

I would show a picture of my tank (were I not so ashamed of what happened after I used this product). NOW - I cant only blame the product - it worked really well with algae - and no problem with corals - but I had a huge spike in nitrates. Thus did a bunch of water changes - and made some other adjustments (key word - many adjustments) since then my tank 'went totally downhill'. part of the problem being that I misaimed a batch of salt water - and totally raised the SG - the tank now looks like a brown swamp - but I'm surprised how many corals seem to be doing well. So - Im not sure how vibrant affects corals - but - If it kills a bunch of stuff - or alters your flora - you could be in for some issues. I'm not blaming vibrant - in fact - in recounting this I'm remembering how many stupid things I did at the same time. (for the first week - my tank never looked clearer - and my corals were excellent)