How do my parameters look?

[jda]

Your coralline most likely died because of a possible algaecide in the Vibrant - lights are a red herring here... look other places. Even at over 100%, there should be no death - we are talking about color and fine tuning at this point and you are a long way from there.

I would actively run some GAC, do a water change, throw the Vibrant away and make a vow to never use any "black box" or "miracle" product again. The stuff is bad news, IMO, as I stated early on.

Get 2 or 3 pincushion urchins for the algae - they will eat coralline too, so some people hate this, but my tanks grow coralline so fast that it does not matter. Anything that eats coralline is a friend of mine.

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

Your coralline most likely died because of a possible algaecide in the Vibrant - lights are a red herring here... look other places. Even at over 100%, there should be no death - we are talking about color and fine tuning at this point and you are a long way from there.

I would actively run some GAC, do a water change, throw the Vibrant away and make a vow to never use any "black box" or "miracle" product again. The stuff is bad news, IMO, as I stated early on.

Get 2 or 3 pincushion urchins for the algae - they will eat coralline too, so some people hate this, but my tanks grow coralline so fast that it does not matter. Anything that eats coralline is a friend of mine.

Unfortunately I convinced myself that the lights were the problem. Either too much or not enough, I wasn't sure.
It looks like I've been barking up the wrong tree.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Unfortunately I convinced myself that the lights were the problem. Either too much or not enough, I wasn't sure.
It looks like I've been barking up the wrong tree.

I’ll check that for you when I get home so we can rule that out. How high are your 26’s mounted above the water?

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

Unfortunately I convinced myself that the lights were the problem. Either too much or not enough, I wasn't sure.
It looks like I've been barking up the wrong tree.

I’ll check that for you when I get home so we can rule that out. How high are your 26’s mounted above the water?

Thank you, I really appreciate it.
My lights are 10'' above the water and my acros are between 7'' and 10'' below the water line.

 

[SeaDweller]

Unfortunately I convinced myself that the lights were the problem. Either too much or not enough, I wasn't sure.
It looks like I've been barking up the wrong tree.

I forgot, I used chemiclean right before I noticed my coralline falling off in sheets too.

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

Just a quick update.....

The first thing that I have done is throw the Vibrant in the bin.
My next step was to do 3 small water changes over the last 3 days (I'm not set up for large water changes) I've roughly changed 45% of the water.
As of today, things are beginning to look a bit better. My Millipora is starting to extend its polyps again, my Garf Bonsai is also starting to show more polyps. Even my Red Planet, which I actually thought might be dead, put some feeders out this morning. The first sign of life for months.
I now agree that it was nothing to do with flow, parameters or lighting. It has been Vibrant that has been the problem. I have been massively overthinking it.
I will continue to do regular, small water changes and hopefully things will continue to improve.

Thank you for the great help and advice. As usual, R2R comes up trumps again.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I agree that vibrant is most likely your culprit but I did check the par on your settings. Now my 26’s are on a 29 gallon biocube and they’re spaced pretty close together. With both on I measured this

And this with only 1 unit on

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

53 watts of light is not very powerful, especially if they are spaced out 12” or more. I would guess your par at 18” below the surface is 150-200 at the most

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

IMO, they are totally full of ****. We looked at Vibrant under three different microscopes and never once saw any bacteria. They posted photos of bacteria, so we though that we would be able to see them too, but nope. What other bacteria product have you ever seen that has no shelf life and does not need to be refrigerated or otherwise handled in a timely fashion? It is most likely just ethanol and some other type of bacteria fuel - or- an algaecide that is somewhat reef safe since it has caused damage to some corals in some tanks, but nothing in others.

In any case, I would never use it in my tanks since they will not tell me what is in it... and what they did say was a lie. They have a right not to tell me exactly what they used, but if it an algaecide, then I want to know this.

Take this all with a few grains of salt since i know for sure that they lied about what is in Purge, so perhaps I have an unhealthy trust of them. Factor this into your decision to do anything with what I just posted.

This question isnt for you @jda but I welcome you or anybody else for that matter that can answer it for me. Now I’m not a marine biologist or chemist or super intelligent etc, but how does any product, bacteria or medication or “proprietary blend” that is formulated to kill algae not irritate or stress an animal that has a symbiotic relationship with algae???

 

[jda]

That is a great question and I do not know the answer. First, you would have to know what the product is to even start. Second, technically, the zoox in corals are dinoflagellates or small cell algae that has some different characterists from the larger macro algae... I imagine that some products could be developed to interact with one, but not the others... but again, gotta know what is in them for even a smart person (not me) to be able to help with the differences. I kinda see these treatments as chemo, where they harm more than just what you are treating... only people who take chemo know this and often have little choice, but people who add black-box supplements often do not.

This is kinda like people adding organic carbon to grow beneficial bacteria who do not consider that they also grow the harmful stuff too. Bacterial based RTN and STN, brown jelly, white spots, etc. can happen faster with vodka, vinegar, biopellets, etc.

You have got to consider the wholistic effect and also try and figure out some of the unintended consequences, for sure.

As for the light... 150-200 estimate is not a lot of output, but this should not lead to death. More would probably be good, but wait until this gets sorted and GO SLOW. Acropora should at least maintain in that range and some of the lower-light ones should grow and look OK.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

That is a great question and I do not know the answer. First, you would have to know what the product is to even start. Second, technically, the zoox in corals are dinoflagellates or small cell algae that has some different characterists from the larger macro algae... I imagine that some products could be developed to interact with one, but not the others... but again, gotta know what is in them for even a smart person (not me) to be able to help with the differences. I kinda see these treatments as chemo, where they harm more than just what you are treating... only people who take chemo know this and often have little choice, but people who add black-box supplements often do not.

This is kinda like people adding organic carbon to grow beneficial bacteria who do not consider that they also grow the harmful stuff too. Bacterial based RTN and STN, brown jelly, white spots, etc. can happen faster with vodka, vinegar, biopellets, etc.

You have got to consider the wholistic effect and also try and figure out some of the unintended consequences, for sure.

As for the light... 150-200 estimate is not a lot of output, but this should not lead to death. More would probably be good, but wait until this gets sorted and GO SLOW. Acropora should at least maintain in that range and some of the lower-light ones should grow and look OK.

Exactly what I was thinking, except I had a dumber layman perspective. So basically we know corals absorb everything they need through the water column, which would have this or that product in it, which would reach the Dino/zoox (forms of algae)correct? Most likely killing the forms of algae, bc that’s what it’s supposed to do. I’ve noticed @UWC lurking on this thread so maybe they can explain it to me and everyone else. How does vibrant/mb bacter 7/flucozanole/ dinox etc kill unwanted algae but not harm other forms of the algae we’re all so desperately trying to keep alive. Surely someone as dumb as me isn’t the first person to ask this.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I guess not. @UWC is too busy checking out the Therman thread

 

[UWC]

@Chaswood79 I’m not sure exactly what you want me to explain and Vibrant is not similar to the other products you mentioned

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

@Chaswood79 At I’m not sure exactly what you want me to explain and Vibrant is not similar to the other products you mentioned

Thank you

 

[SeaDweller]

Exactly what I was thinking, except I had a dumber layman perspective. So basically we know corals absorb everything they need through the water column, which would have this or that product in it, which would reach the Dino/zoox (forms of algae)correct? Most likely killing the forms of algae, bc that’s what it’s supposed to do. I’ve noticed @UWC lurking on this thread so maybe they can explain it to me and everyone else. How does vibrant/mb bacter 7/flucozanole/ dinox etc kill unwanted algae but not harm other forms of the algae we’re all so desperately trying to keep alive. Surely someone as dumb as me isn’t the first person to ask this.

Well I think stuff like MB7, vibrant, dr Tim’s provides some form of “beneficial bacteria” with a carbon source to outcompete other bacteria and perhaps algae by up taking the nutrients/ building blocks in the column. they’re meant to diversify the microbial ecosystem I suppose. When I dose mb7 or ecobalance, I can tell my skimmate builds quickly and is pretty dark. I think my cyano outbreak was from whatever carbon source is in the bacterial additives because I was alternating between the two almost weekly and I think it got out of hand. Adding more didn’t help. chemiclean did.

as for the other part of the question, i guess certain “treatments” are designed to target specific organisms, sort of like what jda is alluding to. Like certain antibiotics target specific components of a bacteria.

or I could be making everything up, but I’m going to dial back on the bacterial dosing.

 

[DEWreefing]

Until the coralline death mention, I was actually going to suggest that 2 X 26HD running 118% UV is too much light over a 50G display. Particularly where the light cones overlap.

We are running 6 52hd over a 6ft tank with the same it's fine his acros are lower in the tank then ours

Correction sorry 4 hydra 52hd and 2 hydra 64 hd

 

[DEWreefing]

Your coralline most likely died because of a possible algaecide in the Vibrant - lights are a red herring here... look other places. Even at over 100%, there should be no death - we are talking about color and fine tuning at this point and you are a long way from there.

I would actively run some GAC, do a water change, throw the Vibrant away and make a vow to never use any "black box" or "miracle" product again. The stuff is bad news, IMO, as I stated early on.

Get 2 or 3 pincushion urchins for the algae - they will eat coralline too, so some people hate this, but my tanks grow coralline so fast that it does not matter. Anything that eats coralline is a friend of mine.

Don't knock the black boxes they work. I just switched to the new hydras 64hd less then a week ago use to run 4 black boxes.
With the new lights my alk has been dropping a lot more and growth is showing quick

 

[DEWreefing]

Ditch the vibrajunk and pick up some doctor Tim's waste away. It has a bacteria population that is know for eating dino's

 

[DEWreefing]

I agree that vibrant is most likely your culprit but I did check the par on your settings. Now my 26’s are on a 29 gallon biocube and they’re spaced pretty close together. With both on I measured this

And this with only 1 unit on

How high are they from the water?

 

[DEWreefing]

Unfortunately I convinced myself that the lights were the problem. Either too much or not enough, I wasn't sure.
It looks like I've been barking up the wrong tree.

Try bringing your lights down about 2in to get into the 300 par range.