Just hearing all the Vibrant controversy and thought I would share my story -- I finally feel like I might have found the reason my tank crashed about this time last year
So to start things out I had a really aggressive type of tube algae I was trying to get rid of as I could not get on top of it with manual removal -- stuff was covering almost every exposed rockface at one point (not my picture, but closest thing I found online to what I was thinking I had - cladophoropsis is what I have seen it referred to online, but not much out there describing it)
not my picture, but closest thing I found online to what I was thinking I had - cladophoropsis is what I have seen it referred to online, but not much out there on it
For the few posts I found online with algae similar to mine, I noticed a common theme of suggesting API Algaefix as a solution -- manual removal was ineffective and it seemed to thrive in low nutrient environments. That said I decided I would give Algaefix a shot as I was at my wits end.
Here's where things went south. I was already dosing Vibrant at the time thinking adding bacteria would help outcompete any undesirables fueling the algae explosion. I was dosing Vibrant quite liberally and not in accordance with the stated directions. Now I know that it's on me that I was dosing a treatment to my tank off-label, but thinking it was a bacterial product, I wasn't worried about it.
So I started using API Algaefix hoping to get on top of the algae all over my rockwork. I did follow the dosing instructions very carefully for the Algaefix as I knew that as an algicide it should be used with caution.
Throughout the next month following this regiment my tank started to go south. my hammers started bailing, my favias lost all vibrancy (no pun intended) and worst of all --my coralline algae turned white and flaked off - i'd say over 75% of it.
poor photography, but here is the tank doing well right before the algae breakout occured - you can see it beinning to form on the high rock on the left.
Hammers looking healthy
So now for the after shots. I had been dosing Algaefix for a month when I decided to stop due to the damage I was seeing, but it was mostly too late. Throughout that month I was also liberally dosing Vibrant not realizing that I was effectively doubling (or tripling...) the dose of Algaefix.
The point at which I stopped dosing Algaefix. Hammers died, Torch eventually bailed as well a week or so later. My favias turned brown, and the coralline was already mostly dead at this point
More shots of the damage
So here I am thinking all this time that API Algae fix killed my tank at the recommended dosages. However with all the news recently it appears that although Algaefix did kill my tank -- it was Algaefix AND Vibrant together that really are to blame, as I was essentially dosing two algicides to the tank in tandem. I was so frustrated because the only thing that did survive were my rock flowers, zoas AND the algae I was fighting.
The worst thing is even after this crash, I kept dosing vibrant to the tank thinking Algaefix killed my coral as well as my beneficial bacteria. I was continuing to dose Vibrant as I thought it would help increase my tanks bacteria population.
It took me a solid year to get the tank back on track. Here was the tank looked like about 3-4 months after the crash -- when I finally felt comfortable enough to buy some new frags to begin replacing what I'd lost.
And here are some more recent pictures of the tank from mid-Feb. -- Things are finally looking up, but I know I'm done with Vibrant (and algicides in general) going forward.
If Vibrant had been correctly labelled I would not have ever dosed it how I did.
Below are the most recent tank shots from mid-Feb. 2022:
Thanks for reading!
So to start things out I had a really aggressive type of tube algae I was trying to get rid of as I could not get on top of it with manual removal -- stuff was covering almost every exposed rockface at one point (not my picture, but closest thing I found online to what I was thinking I had - cladophoropsis is what I have seen it referred to online, but not much out there describing it)
not my picture, but closest thing I found online to what I was thinking I had - cladophoropsis is what I have seen it referred to online, but not much out there on it
For the few posts I found online with algae similar to mine, I noticed a common theme of suggesting API Algaefix as a solution -- manual removal was ineffective and it seemed to thrive in low nutrient environments. That said I decided I would give Algaefix a shot as I was at my wits end.
Here's where things went south. I was already dosing Vibrant at the time thinking adding bacteria would help outcompete any undesirables fueling the algae explosion. I was dosing Vibrant quite liberally and not in accordance with the stated directions. Now I know that it's on me that I was dosing a treatment to my tank off-label, but thinking it was a bacterial product, I wasn't worried about it.
So I started using API Algaefix hoping to get on top of the algae all over my rockwork. I did follow the dosing instructions very carefully for the Algaefix as I knew that as an algicide it should be used with caution.
Throughout the next month following this regiment my tank started to go south. my hammers started bailing, my favias lost all vibrancy (no pun intended) and worst of all --my coralline algae turned white and flaked off - i'd say over 75% of it.
poor photography, but here is the tank doing well right before the algae breakout occured - you can see it beinning to form on the high rock on the left.
Hammers looking healthy
So now for the after shots. I had been dosing Algaefix for a month when I decided to stop due to the damage I was seeing, but it was mostly too late. Throughout that month I was also liberally dosing Vibrant not realizing that I was effectively doubling (or tripling...) the dose of Algaefix.
The point at which I stopped dosing Algaefix. Hammers died, Torch eventually bailed as well a week or so later. My favias turned brown, and the coralline was already mostly dead at this point
More shots of the damage
So here I am thinking all this time that API Algae fix killed my tank at the recommended dosages. However with all the news recently it appears that although Algaefix did kill my tank -- it was Algaefix AND Vibrant together that really are to blame, as I was essentially dosing two algicides to the tank in tandem. I was so frustrated because the only thing that did survive were my rock flowers, zoas AND the algae I was fighting.
The worst thing is even after this crash, I kept dosing vibrant to the tank thinking Algaefix killed my coral as well as my beneficial bacteria. I was continuing to dose Vibrant as I thought it would help increase my tanks bacteria population.
It took me a solid year to get the tank back on track. Here was the tank looked like about 3-4 months after the crash -- when I finally felt comfortable enough to buy some new frags to begin replacing what I'd lost.
And here are some more recent pictures of the tank from mid-Feb. -- Things are finally looking up, but I know I'm done with Vibrant (and algicides in general) going forward.
If Vibrant had been correctly labelled I would not have ever dosed it how I did.
Below are the most recent tank shots from mid-Feb. 2022:
Thanks for reading!
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