Vibrant... will it work?

Silentreefer · Dec 14, 2018

Just got a bottle of vibrant in the mail so I'm going to be trying it out. Tank is a 56 marine land with a 20h for a sump with some bryopsis, velonia, gha, and ulva, with a chaeto fuge that also has pink cotton algae but the goal is to kill everything but the chaeto lol. The live stock includes 24 acro frags, 5 acans, 2 psammacoras, 4 cyphastrea, 2 favia, 1 goni, 2 ricordia, 2 zoas, 1 leptastrea, 1 cap, 1 setosa, 1 aquaman monti (idk species), 1 sand nem, 2 clown fish, 7 chromis, 1 coral beauty and 1 diamond goby. I will be posting pics every time I dose for whoever wants to follow along for the ride. Started with the minimum recommended dose of 1 ml per 10 gallons per 2 weeks. Any tips for vibrant use will be appreciated. Wish me luck lol

Nanoreefwannabe · Dec 14, 2018

Oh man... how did that happen?

I wish you best of luck... going out works...i have heard good things about vibrant

Silentreefer · Dec 14, 2018

Thanks

Just built up over the past six months, kinda got away from me lol

and my fish and snails dont eat enough of it. Everything is doing good and growing i just finally got tired of looking at it, also I did an icp test and said I have high levels of zinc probably from manually removing all the time so I've been trying NOT to put my hands in the tank.

Nanoreefwannabe · Dec 15, 2018

I would think elevated zinc would be from your water source... unless you work with it and it is on your hands

Silentreefer · Dec 15, 2018

The icp test says common sources of zinc are from your hands (lotions/soaps I guess) and contaminated salt and trace elements. They're the experts so I'll listen lol

Silentreefer · Dec 15, 2018

FWIW it's only been a couple days since the initial dose but I've noticed I dont have my usual film algae build up on the viewing panels

Silentreefer · Dec 17, 2018

The die off has begun!

gonna do a 20 percent (10g) water change and add 1ml to replace the dose for the water I take out and do my second full dose on Thursday ulva and bubble algae still unaffected though

acabgd · Dec 18, 2018

Unless you're 100% sure it's not in your water (do you make your own RO/DI with newer filters?) I would think twice before doing any further water changes. You could actually be just reintroducing more zinc or other nasties.

spiritwalker · Dec 18, 2018

I wish I could say i have had positive results with vibrant.. I initially started dosing it for bubble algae.. After a couple weeks I got cyano.. then gha.. I am pretty sure the vibrant caused they cyano.. The tank gets really clear and film algae on glass is nonexistent but I don't see much result on the hair algae now. After my initial cyano outbreak i treated with chemiclean and then went back to dosing vibrant and whammo.. another cyano outbreak.. I am now cyano free but wondering what to do with the hair algae.. I'll be writting up a separate thread to seek guidance for my particular situation today.. I wish you luck and will be following along.

reef-rc · Dec 18, 2018

I had started using Vibrant on my Fusion 20 (bryopsis, bubble) and Fluval Evo (hair/turf algae) tank back on Oct. 30, 2018. Last dose was on Dec. 1, 2018.

I mostly followed per instructions (only exception for the miss-calculation on my part when I had way over-dose Fusion 20). Having said that here was what I saw:

Fusion 20 - It did weaken both bryopsis and bubble algae. With bubble algae it killed the majority of it. I still had to manually removed bryopsis by hand every week through-out the whole time-frame. I am looking to retreat the remaining bubble algae once I finish the 2nd week and let the tank run without any treatment for a few weeks before retreating.
Fluval Evo - It did seem to weaken the hair/turf algae somewhat; that's about it.

Overall it did improve bubble algae control for sure and somewhat slowed the growth of bryopsis somewhat.

Having seen the results I got with Vibrant I then tried Fluconazole treatment using Reef Flux ( on Dec. 10, 2018 per instructions. I am currently passed a week into it, here is what I am seeing.

Fusion 20 - Bryopsis has nearly been eradicated from the tank completely! This is a BIG WIN for me so I am happy so far. It however does not seem to affect bubble algae, I still have some remaining and does not seem to be affected I don't think.
Fluval Evo - Hair/turf algae is DYING OFF! It's slow but I can tell from the pieces it's on. This may be because the tank is 13G tank and I only used 1 capsule which was meant for just 10G. I am looking to retreat the remaining hair/turf algae once I finish the 2nd week and let the tank run without any treatment for a few weeks before retreating.

I did noticed Vibrant had a little affect on a few corals of mine (soft corals i recalled). With Reef Flux I did not see something similar.

Hope this helps. I look to see your results and compare for reference. I was going update my Fusion 20 thread later this week but when I saw your thread I thought I share in case it helps sooner rather than later.

Silentreefer · Dec 18, 2018

acabgd said:
Unless you're 100% sure it's not in your water (do you make your own RO/DI with newer filters?) I would think twice before doing any further water changes. You could actually be just reintroducing more zinc or other nasties.

I have a 6 stage rodi with only 21 TDs going in all my filters were replaced in June I flush my ro membrane for 5-10 minutes before every use. That being said i am not 100% sure as i didnt not test the new water for zinc but I'm 99.9 % sure lol. I did change salts from RC to coralife (after the icp test) since 2 batches of RC tested .04 po4 tanks been doing better since the change and so far the corallife hasn't left any residue in my mixing container like the RC

Silentreefer · Dec 18, 2018

reef-rc said:
I had started using Vibrant on my Fusion 20 (bryopsis, bubble) and Fluval Evo (hair/turf algae) tank back on Oct. 30, 2018. Last dose was on Dec. 1, 2018.

Thank you for the info, I was in between using vibrant and reef HD but brs was out at the time so I ordered vibrant off ebay. As of now (only 1 dose) there's quite a few patches of algae that are turning white, the bubble algae is still unaffected it seems. I usually spot feed my softies and lps once a week with reef roids/reef chili mix and they are still doing good I heard they do bad because vibrant lowers nitrate and phosphate so much but I will most likely post after every dose unless nothing substantial changes

Firemanreefkeeper · Dec 18, 2018

Following along. My mother-in-law tank has hair algae so I'm curious about your results

Silentreefer · Dec 21, 2018

Ok just did my second dose of vibrant. Algae has slowed down substantially and I have not needed to scrape the glass for this whole week and 3 days before the first dose (still havent). The turf style algaes are dying slowly. I did a bit of manual removal since I had my hands in the tank anyway as I took out my neptune par meter and put my homewrecker frag in its place. The ulva is still alive but I haven't really noticed growth from it and the BA in the lighted areas seems to be getting pale and soft not really firm looking anymore. My chaeto is still growing, slower, but I've been feeding a little extra to try keep my chaeto alive as I've read others have had their chaeto die. I may end up buying nitrate and phosphate additives to possibly dose small amounts with return off for an hour or something during the fuges light cycle. On a side note I started dosing the red sea trace colors so we'll see how that goes as well

Silentreefer · Dec 22, 2018

The ulva is dying after 2 doses! Looking forward to the 3rd dose lol
All of the tank inhabitants looks healthy still

Firemanreefkeeper · Dec 22, 2018

Looking good so far.

Silentreefer · Dec 29, 2018

Just an update all the turf algae is almost gone hasnt had much impact on the bubble algae and not quite enough to kill ulva at the current dose but I'll keep dosing the same until the turf is gone then up it to 1ml/g every 4 days. Chaeto is fine and algae growth has definately slowed finally had to scrape glass due to coraline.

Silentreefer · Feb 9, 2019

for those of you following I have been a bit busy lately but all the algae except the velonia is gone. The ulva is hanging in there but almost gone aswell. Doing doses every 4 days no water changes changing the filter sock when its dirty and feeding pretty heavily and the sps are loving it lol. The vibrant is not affecting the ba at all probably because of the heavy feeding understandably. Will be upping the dosing frequency once the ulva is gone. But the corals are deffinately benefiting from the heavy feeding and the vibrant is keeping the no3 and po4 down also dosing redsea trace colors daily and acropower once a week.

reef-rc · Feb 9, 2019

That's awesome!

You had mentioned no water change. How often are you doing water change since you started in mid December?

Silentreefer · Feb 9, 2019

reef-rc said:
That's awesome!

You had mentioned no water change. How often are you doing water change since you started in mid December?

I stopped doing them about 1 month ago as I had a hard time getting enough nutrients for the corals and they started getting pale before i did 20% weekly water changes and changed my socks every other day. Going to do a triton icp sometime next month to see where everything's at