Vibrant addition killed fish within 30 mins, now what?

[167496]

Added the recommended amount of Vibrant to my tank last night. All fish dead in 30 minutes. I see other threads related to why that could happen, and that's not my question.

During the 30 mins the fish were dying I panicked did a 50% water change. Do I need to completely take the tank down and restart? Or should I do a close to 100% water change, carbon?

All fish are dead, but the water looks super clear this morning. Great...

 

[Garf]

Added the recommended amount of Vibrant to my tank last night. All fish dead in 30 minutes. I see other threads related to why that could happen, and that's not my question.

During the 30 mins the fish were dying I panicked did a 50% water change. Do I need to completely take the tank down and restart? Or should I do a close to 100% water change, carbon?

All fish are dead, but the water looks super clear this morning. Great...

Not heard of this from vibrant before. You do know it's an algaecide I presume. You sure nothing else is going on?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Perhaps the dead organisms released toxins.

 

[KandAReefs]

I have used it in my tank for years and never had an issue.

 

[Tcook]

Were you using it against dinos?

 

[Garf]

Were you using it against dinos?

Does it even effect dinos?

 

[Tcook]

Does it even effect dinos?

Not sure but a tank loss overnight must be some type of toxin or O2 depletion.

 

[crabgrass]

I don’t think it killed your fish directly (although that is what appeared). Maybe whatever it killed released something into your system or caused a bloom to soak up all the O2?

Did you have a skimmer going, or anything helping with airiating the water?

Why did you add it?

 

[Lavey29]

Perhaps significantly overdosed

 

[crabgrass]

Perhaps significantly overdosed

I have done like 2-4x in a single dose, for a week straight and didn’t have any issue with livestock (tried to eradicate Some bubble algae). I was running a skimmer and carbon, which is maybe the difference.

Was it smart? -> No. and I paid for it for another year with various other outbreaks.

My vibrant is in the garbage.

 

[Lavey29]

I have done like 2-4x in a single dose, for a week straight and didn’t have any issue with livestock (tried to eradicate Some bubble algae). I was running a skimmer and carbon, which is maybe the difference.

Was it smart? -> No. and I paid for it for another year with various other outbreaks.

My vibrant is in the garbage.

Good you tossed it out. There is no vibrant in the ocean.

 

[taricha]

To be clear, this is very uncommon, but it isn't unheard of either...

I had used Vibrant and it caused a huge ammonia Spike. Killing all my fish in under 2hrs.
( My daughter's thread as it was happening https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/help-vibrant-for-reef-aquariums.668454/)

I had a disaster with Vibrant yesterday.

I dosed this to my 400l fish only (and 1 anenome) marine tank, the fish were good and healthy which I've had for about 7 years - but nearly all were dead only few hrs after (so far a powder brown tang, a toby, a cleaner wrasse, a bicolor angel, a blennie, a blue cheek trigger, a red tooth trigger and a large banner fish, only 2 clownfish the anenome remain the next day.

There seems to be definitely a pattern here.. interestingly it killed both my clowns in under 30 minutes.

Note the descriptions of the algae in the tank in each of these cases....

we have hair algae, coarser turf algae, and a fluffy/stringy brown algae i dont know the name of was on some rocks and sand.

Here is my experience and conclusion:

I had some light rust colored powder to slimey growth on the glass and substrate

I did have little dyno looking algae on the substrate as visible in the image below:

There is no chemical basis for this algaecide itself to directly kill fish rapidly under reef tank conditions, so Randy's suggestion seems the viable explanation.
The algaecide doesn't always work on dinos, but the expected activity of this chemical against algae is to directly disrupt cell membranes. So if the cells contain high amounts of internal toxins, and the algaecide disrupts cell membranes as it's expected to do, then toxins could be released rapidly.
This would match people's descriptions of what happened to their fish and consistent with the fish behavior before dying.


On the OP's question....

I see other threads related to why that could happen, and that's not my question.

During the 30 mins the fish were dying I panicked did a 50% water change. Do I need to completely take the tank down and restart? Or should I do a close to 100% water change, carbon?

Based on how this seems to happen, I'd say total restart isn't required - water changes and GAC ought to handle the toxicity. But it does suggest an unusually toxic algae in the system - so I wouldn't blame you if you decided to break it all down, and bleach/restart.

 

[MnFish1]

Perhaps the dead organisms released toxins.

I wondered about this - but 30 minutes seems a little fast for that?

 

[MnFish1]

To be clear, this is very uncommon, but it isn't unheard of either...







Note the descriptions of the algae in the tank in each of these cases....







There is no chemical basis for this algaecide itself to directly kill fish rapidly under reef tank conditions, so Randy's suggestion seems the viable explanation.
The algaecide doesn't always work on dinos, but the expected activity of this chemical against algae is to directly disrupt cell membranes. So if the cells contain high amounts of internal toxins, and the algaecide disrupts cell membranes as it's expected to do, then toxins could be released rapidly.
This would match people's descriptions of what happened to their fish and consistent with the fish behavior before dying.


On the OP's question....

Based on how this seems to happen, I'd say total restart isn't required - water changes and GAC ought to handle the toxicity. But it does suggest an unusually toxic algae in the system - so I wouldn't blame you if you decided to break it all down, and bleach/restart.

I would think it would be extremely unlikely for a dose of vibrant to kill enough algae so quickly that death would result in 30 minutes (assume that symptoms started before then?)

 

[MnFish1]

Added the recommended amount of Vibrant to my tank last night. All fish dead in 30 minutes. I see other threads related to why that could happen, and that's not my question.

During the 30 mins the fish were dying I panicked did a 50% water change. Do I need to completely take the tank down and restart? Or should I do a close to 100% water change, carbon?

All fish are dead, but the water looks super clear this morning. Great...

Given the speed of this occurring, it could be a direct toxicity from vibrant (in case you did an overdose - though as already said multiple people have used high doses with no issues.

What would be helpful is if you could tell the symptoms you started noticing the fish having after addition - and perhaps a list of the fish. I guess I can imagine a scenario that vibrant was superimposed on another issue affecting your fish (a low O2, an undiagnosed gill disease and the fish could not handle the vibrant, etc). I only mention this because a disease alone also would not be likely to kill all fish in 30 minutes. I'm assuming your parameters were ok.

Lastly to answer your question - I would not restart, I would just do a water change and add carbon. I would consider just doing a 100% change. Additionally would not add fish until after a fallow period of 6-8 weeks.

Also - sorry about your fish.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I would think it would be extremely unlikely for a dose of vibrant to kill enough algae so quickly that death would result in 30 minutes (assume that symptoms started before then?)

Maybe. I don't know how fast it kills the most susceptible organisms.

 

[MnFish1]

Maybe. I don't know how fast it kills the most susceptible organisms.

I was basing it on the doubling time of dinoflagellates/algae

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was basing it on the doubling time of dinoflagellates/algae

But if you rip open the membrane of a pest with a pesticide (which can happen fast), then toxin can be released as fast as that happens.

This is a different cationic antimicrobial polymer (cecropin), but it kills fast:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ar...netics is an,completely killed within 40 min.
"After treatment with concentration of 2 × MIC, the number of viable bacteria was dramatically decreased, and Candida albicans could be completely killed within 40 min."

 

[MnFish1]

But if you rip open the membrane of a pest with a pesticide (which can happen fast), then toxin can be released as fast as that happens.

This is a different cationic antimicrobial polymer (cecropin), but it kills fast:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ar...netics is an,completely killed within 40 min.
"After treatment with concentration of 2 × MIC, the number of viable bacteria was dramatically decreased, and Candida albicans could be completely killed within 40 min."

Thanks!! It would be interesting if the OP has a picture of the tank before treatment. or if he/she was using carbon. Also - interesting to hear what symptoms were - and how quickly they developed. From a timing perspective, something related to the addition of the algaecide seems to be the cause.

 

[exnisstech]

I love it when people post like this then don't even bother acknowledging the people that have taken time to offer assistance. Hopefully the OP has a very busy schedule and is not just inconsiderate :thinking-face: