Vibrant

[Amtrack5899]

I am using vibrant to battle turf algae in my tank. I have the skimmer and carbon reactor on . Should either of these be turned off during treatment? GFO is off. Nitrates are 21 ppm, phosphates 0.0

 

[Waters]

I am using vibrant to battle turf algae in my tank. I have the skimmer and carbon reactor on . Should either of these be turned off during treatment? GFO is off. Nitrates are 21 ppm, phosphates 0.0

You can leave it all on....Vibrant is a bacteria so the carbon will have no effect and the skimmer will not remove enough to make a difference.

 

[Amtrack5899]

Thank you, I have given the tank 3 doses and not much happening yet. I wanted to make sure I was doing thing’s correctly

 

[Dbichler]

Turf algae will take a while for vibrant to work most likely 8 weeks or more.

 

[Poof No Eyebrows]

I use vibrant periodically in my small tank. It works, but it is a natural product and as such it takes a while to see results. You will eventually see them though.

 

[Amtrack5899]

I have given it 4 doses. I reach in and manually pull out what I can but its like pulling fuzz off of a peach. I can only pull off the big chunks and its really embedded into the rocks.. I have 4 or 5 urchins and a few small emerald crabs along with various hermits and snails. The fox face and tang seem to ignore it.
My phosphates are 0 but my nitrates are still about 20. I have cut way back on feeding the corals and fish. i moved my Chaeto to a separate tank. Once the turf algae is gone should i just do a few water changes to minimize the vibrant and reintroduce the Chaeto to fuge? I’m concerned that once i stop dosing the vibrant the turf algae will rapidly come back.

 

[Waters]

Unfortunately there is a good chance the algae will come back unless you change whatever caused it in the first place. Sometimes that is reducing nutrients by feeding less, blowing out the rock periodically so that detritus doesn't sit in the rock holes and feed the algae, etc. Urchins and fish normally won't do much to algae once it grows longer.......they prefer the shorter stuff. The only thing that I have had that tackles long hair algae is a Sea Hare.

 

[Amtrack5899]

I don’t know for sure what initially caused the turf algae. My nitrates have always run around 20 ppm. My tank is 1 year old. I was trying to improve coral growth by broadcast feeding coral food. Reef roids, AB+, phyto, reef chilli etc and i fed the fish 4 cubes of various frozen food a day. My phosphates got high and my DOS for the soda ash stopped for a few days and the alkalinity dropped. I assume that was the initial cause Of the turf algae. Since then I have stopped broadcast feeding of the coral food other than a periodic target feeding and have cut the fish food in half. I ran GFO for a while but it is now off due to the vibrant. My phosphates are 0 and my nitrates continue to be 20 ppm. I have a good octopus skimmer and a decent clean up crew. Sea Hares are hard to find. If I locate one I will purchase it.

 

[BostonReefer300]

NO3 looks high in my opinion. I think PO4 being zero is unlikely. What tests are you using for these and what are the values for your other standard parameters and how big is your tank and livestock burden? With that amount of feeding, I can't imagine that your PO4 isn't high unless you've got a big tank. Having a zero PO4 reading could be a false reading because of the test you're using or because you've got so much algae growing that it's hoovering up PO4 quickly. Assuming high PO4, you'd obviously want to consider putting GFO back on and making sure it's a fresh batch.

 

[Amtrack5899]

I have a 120 gallon aquarium with about a 50 gallon sump. I use the the salifert nitrate test kit. I sent 2 samples to salt water aquarium for testing . One on 3/16 and one on 3/31 and they both indicated zero phosphates and 21-22 nitrates therefore I am reasonably confident in the test results. Wednesday I sent a sample to triton and I should have the results back in about a week.
My turf algae isn’t terrible , about a 5 on a 0-10 scale. I am about 3 weeks into the vibrant treatment.

 

[BostonReefer300]

5 out of 10 sounds bad to me. Do you have some pics? I’m still thinking the algae is consuming all PO4, so that’s why you’re getting a zero reading. Vibrant takes a while to work, but I think you should at least be seeing an arrest if algae spread by now. You could try lightening up on the feeding, using GFO and adding phyto. I’d first do a good size water change if you haven’t recently

 

[Amtrack5899]

I’ll take a picture this afternoon when I have better lighting.
I do a weekly 15 gallon water change on Tuesday ’s then add the 15 mls of vibrant.

 

[BostonReefer300]

Sounds good. I'll keep an eye out. I just hope my crap advice will help---and not eventually lead to a dino outbreak! This hobby is maddening so much of the time

 

[NormanB]

I am certainly not an expert on anything and that includes the use of vibrant. Just my observation though, if 15ml of vibrant is your total weekly dosage, that may need to be increased.

I've got a 75g DT and about 55g sump for a total water volume of about 80g. I had red turf algae and was dosing 10ml 2x per week and it was gone in about a month.

Currently fighting byropsis and dosing vibrant at 20ml 2x per week for about a month now and steadily winning the war. I went from about 40% coverage to 10% at this time. I'm considering going to 30ml 2x per week and see what happens.

I've seen no negative impact on fish or corals during this time.

Like I said, just my experience in my system and not an expert.

 

[Amtrack5899]

 

[Amtrack5899]

The first and third picture are from the same area just different angles . This is the worst of it,

 

[NatureHold]

I've been dosing Vibrant 1.25x the recommended dose 2 times a week for 5 weeks. I had bad bryopsis (2 species) and some bubble algae. Week 3 I started to notice the shorter bryopsis was dying. Week 4 and 5, there is noticeable decline/death of all algae in the tank. The longer version of Bryopsis I have, has taken a bit longer to start dying but it is for sure dying. You may need to bump up your dosing either in frequency or quantity.

 

[Waters]

Just be careful with Vibrant (or any additives for that matter). I have used vibrant successfully in several tanks, and have also had Vibrant practically wipe out others. The stuff is hit or miss for sure. The tanks with issues were not due to nutrients bottoming out since I was testing daily during treatment.

 

[BostonReefer300]

Thanks for the pictures. That's not as bad as I was expecting for a 5 out of 10. I'd keep up the Vibrant and turn your GFO back on (fresh GFO though). If you can remove clumps with your thumb while holding a siphon right there, that'll definitely speed up the process. Beautiful coral pieces by the way. Love the torch!

 

[Amtrack5899]

Follow up on turf algae.
This is week 11 and my turf algae is almost gone. The final solution was to add 15 mls of vibrant twice a week and manually remove as much hair algae as possible once per week. I also had a large CUC of urchins, crabs snails etc.
Now I need to start gradually backing off on the vibrant . My phosphates are still .2 ppm and my nitrates are 22 ppm.