[Vibrant aquarium cleaner]

Robert Binz · Jan 19, 2021

This seems like a great solution for hair algae and bubble algae.

my concern is that it’ll kill my film algae and coralline growing on the rocks and keeping dinos at bay.

Can someone shed light on whether Vibrant will actually hurt the micro biome by killing off all the algaes and creating an imbalance?

sixline · Jan 19, 2021

I'm also thinking about using vibrant - in my case to combat turf algae. I've never used it, but if you use the search function, there is already a 326 page thread on it.

Robert Binz · Jan 19, 2021

sixline said:
I'm also thinking about using vibrant - in my case to combat turf algae. I've never used it, but if you use the search function, there is already a 326 page thread on it.

Yeah but that thread is FILLED with people ******** about issues with vibrant because they don’t understand how to dose nitrate when using a bacterial supplement so I wanted to ask a very specific question lol

JumboShrimp · Feb 19, 2021

My best advice on Vibrant... be patient. Do not overdose; if anything, underdose. I used it on a tank with hair algae by dosing once a week, and in 8-10 weeks, algae gone.

Uncle99 · Feb 19, 2021

Twice, about 8 weeks after using Vibrant, I lost all my coralline Algae.

I got it to kill GHA and Bubble Algae which it did fully, just didn’t think it would kill the hard stuff.

Can’t prove it, just coincidence maybe.

it’s three months later now and coralline is just starting on the glass again.

rwreef · Feb 19, 2021

I have used it and if any thing I felt like my coraline growth increased. Probably not vibrant, but maybe just a cleaner aquarium.

GardenReef · Feb 19, 2021

Aloha! I used Vibrant in my RSM130 for a round or two of treatment per bottle directions.
Some background. I had picked up the tank and inhabitants from Criagslist and it had tons of neglect. Hair algae, bubble algae, aptasia, red slime, and worst of all ended up being derbesia ... I got rid of the slime, hair, and aptasia but couldn't dent the bubbles. Eventually tried Vibrant and it took a little while, but definitely had a positive impact reducing the bubble algae. However, I did lose my Cheato pretty quickly. For the coraline, I wouldn't say it killed it off, but i think it slowed it down. After those 2 doses and about 6 months of patience. Closely monitoring my feedings, h2o changes, testing, etc. i got nailed with the derbesia... What finally cleared that up was a round of flucanozole (Reef Flux) treatment - which also finished off the bubble algae.
Right now the tank has been pretty clean and all coral and fish are super happy going on 8 months. Even started Acro frag

Sorry for the long winded reply but thought some context may help. This battle has been ongoing since i got the tank 3 years ago and is now finally stabilizing and clear. Did vibrant help - yes. Did it make drastic improvement overnight - nope. Did it kill off some stuff - cheato i think yes, but coralline ... meh maybe not so much. More likely i didn't have as much as i thought hidden among the other issues..
Many things out there can help us, we just need to temper our expectations maybe, and for sure be patient and take our time learning what is interacting in our systems.
Recent pic of the tank attached. Hope this helped.

Billdogg · Feb 19, 2021

I used it very successfully in my SPS dominant 120DT for a bubble algae problem that manual removal just could not keep up with. I dosed it at about 1.5x once a week until I saw the BA starting to die off and then cut back to a 1x dosage until the BA was gone. I did not see any effect on anything else in the tank, but a month or so later began to have a cyanobacteria issue that may or may not have been related. I got through that using chemiclean and have not had a problem since.

Your mileage may vary....

Dkmoo · Feb 19, 2021

i had very good results with it - key is not to OD (if anything, use less than full recommended dose)

it's very effective at killing GHA for me, didn't harm coralline for me.

the way it works, in killing the algae, results in the upcycling of no3/po4 back into organic particles that can either be absorbed by things in the water column, or breaks back down to no3/po4 by other bacteria. the sudden removal of GHA as a no3 competition also opened the space up for other things. going too fast may lead to subsequent cyano/brown algae breakouts but those should be temporary with continued husbandry after treatment.

for me actually this resulted in an explosion of filter feeders - some were good for the tank (ie, sponges and vermetids) some were bad (hydroids). with manual removal of the hydroid + filter sock for a month, the hydroids got under control and the good stuff still remained.

ReeferLou · Feb 19, 2021

I am on my third week of vibrant to help with some red/green hair algae. I can say I see major results now in the third week. I have 72 gal + 20 gal sump and I added 7ml week 1 and 9ml week2 as my tank was pretty dirty. I did notice my GSP and colts coral closed up for a few days which had me worried. I did a small water change ~ 8 gal and all is better. I am done dosing for now for week3 as my NO is now 0 and my P0 = .02. I was pretty amazed at the difference in the three weeks. If I would do over I would not add as much in the second week.

nano reef · Jul 8, 2022

Uncle99 said:
Twice, about 8 weeks after using Vibrant, I lost all my coralline Algae.

I got it to kill GHA and Bubble Algae which it did fully, just didn’t think it would kill the hard stuff.

Can’t prove it, just coincidence maybe.

it’s three months later now and coralline is just starting on the glass again.

You know I just put that together! I was doing it 2 xs a week with mb7 because I had dinos! I had very little coralline on my walls at all, and since my dinos are gone and I only dose it here and there I am getting coraline like crazy! I dose it more in one tank because of GHA and no coraline! I think my lights are causing the algae! It has really yellow warm white and hard to program so I just keep it on aclimation mode and actually put electrical tape over the yellow looking warm whites but there is a certain time of day it gets really yellow and my corals all start to close up as well! Its an aquatic life edge strip. I just bought new lights to replace with!