The not an Evo anymore Redemption Reef - Meet Hector

[TerraIncognita]

Just now, mipster said:

I saw this video, it's what got me curious about trying it! The I went waaaay deep into this 350 page long thread on R2R that was started back in 2016 :https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/vibrant-liquid-aquarium-cleaner-discussion-thread.271428/

 

I'm always interested in trying things out for the sake of me and my fellow reefer, especially if it can help with both of the problems I'm having right now - high nutrients from heavy feeding to keep my sun coral happy and Ulva.

Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

[mipster]

1 minute ago, TerraIncognita said:

Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

HAHAHA! Already ordered some my friend! Should get here in a couple days and I will be sure to fully document what happens.

[TerraIncognita]

I may be super late on you already saying you were gonna do this lmfao. Mb. WOOHOO!

[mipster]

Just now, TerraIncognita said:

I may be super late on you already saying you were gonna do this lmfao.

I didn't really definitively state I was going to do it! I love the enthusiasm for me being a guinea pig lol

 

Are you having some algae problems and you want to see how it goes for me real time before trying?

[TerraIncognita]

i have random pieces of hair algae on frags and a few other red algae etc. Just little spots i wanna handle here and ther ebut also my reef is super new so i'm not concenred.

[mipster]

1 hour ago, TerraIncognita said:

i have random pieces of hair algae on frags and a few other red algae etc. Just little spots i wanna handle here and ther ebut also my reef is super new so i'm not concenred.

Ya my tank is young too but been through a lot. Ich and Dinos and Ulva OH MY!

 

 

 

My ulva came in on a frag, I know exactly which A$$hole is to blame. It's lucky it's pretty lol I had used hydrogen peroxide on the frag when I first noticed the Ulva growing but either I didn't use enough or I missed some and it's spread. Luckily, we are not at infestation level. I think my success with dinos and my hopeful success with Ulva has largely been attributed to early ID and action so it doesn't have the chance to be a huge issue. I've been lucky in that regard. Let's hope this vibrant adventure goes well! I remember from watching that BRA test video, the vibrant had a harder time with the Ulva BUT those tanks were CRAZY over run where as I have a little here and a little there so less to battle. 

[TerraIncognita]

Yeah. I’m also 100% assuming all your params are in check. I didn’t actually read the whole thread sorry haha. But if your params are in check and everything is happy otherwise I’m excited to see what happens as well.

[mipster]

1 minute ago, TerraIncognita said:

But if your params are in check and everything is happy otherwise

My Nitrates creep up to around 15 - 20 ppm over the course of the week before I do a 50% water change. This was why I was starting to look into additional filtration methods before the vibrant conversation started but then @Ash1176 mentioned that Vibrant can lower nitrates and phosphates and that people have to be careful that they don't bottom out while dosing Vibrant so I'm not going to focus on my nutrients until I see how the Vibrant effects those. One problem at a time!

 

I have a fairly large sun coral colony (large by Evo 13.5 standards anyways) so I feed it daily quite heavily which is what is causing the higher then desired nutrients. But my corals don't appear pissed off, in fact I've seen quite a bit of new growth on most of them and significant coraline algae growth.

 

I'm pretty excited for the Vibrant to arrive. It's going to be super interesting to see and document what happens though I'm less thrilled by the idea of daily testing lol But I think it would be interesting to know what's happening there. 

[Tamberav]

Sometimes vibrant leads to cyano which leads back to dino. Fair warning.

 

Ulva is tasty and I have found hermits and emeralds or even bigger snails eat the crap out of it so it should be easy to control. I would love to grow it but everything eats it in like 2 days on whatever frag plug it comes in on.

[mipster]

7 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Ulva is tasty and I have found hermits and emeralds or even bigger snails eat the crap out of it so it should be easy to control.

I have a good amount and variation of clean up crew in here and nothing has been touching it. I even went and got cowrie snails specifically for the ulva and no interest.

 

7 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Sometimes vibrant leads to cyano which leads back to dino.

Was this what happened when you tried it?

[Ash1176]

11 hours ago, mipster said:

My Nitrates creep up to around 15 - 20 ppm over the course of the week before I do a 50% water change. This was why I was starting to look into additional filtration methods before the vibrant conversation started but then @Ash1176 mentioned that Vibrant can lower nitrates and phosphates and that people have to be careful that they don't bottom out while dosing Vibrant so I'm not going to focus on my nutrients until I see how the Vibrant effects those. One problem at a time!

Yeap, I would have a plan for after vibrant, unless you decide to keep dosing it as an ongoing thing (the older brs 5 min videos had a recap episode and they said this was the main reason they avoided algae all the way)

If you stop regular dosing you will have nutrients again, I think it take few weeks of dosing to see the effects so you would time to add some matrix rocks, and that will keep your nitrate in check, and then maybe for your phosphates add GFO as needed after the vibrant is done 

[TerraIncognita]

59 minutes ago, Ash1176 said:

Yeap, I would have a plan for after vibrant, unless you decide to keep dosing it as an ongoing thing (the brs 5 min recap episode said this was the main reason they avoided algae all the way)

If you stop regular dosing you will have nutrients again, I think it take few weeks of dosing to see the effects so you would time to add some matrix rocks, and that will keep your nitrate in check, and then maybe for your phosphates add GFO as needed after the vibrant is done 

I feel like maybe the dosing was not in fact complete in maybe a few of those scenarios. If you realllllyyy think about it, once the algae spores are dead dead dead they’d have to restart their whole colony from scratch. I think if you dosed say another 8 weeks beyond the algae being gone. And then maybe slowed dosing down like every other week for 8 weeks And then did it every other week half dosing for 4 more After. You’d probably never see that algae again. Additionally giving your coraline as well a 12 week head start on it to start growing on your rocks. (In the video at least they mentioned coraline growth concurrent with algae dying) One of the test they did they noted the Uva died and was instantly consumed my a FOREST of Hair Algae, but 3 more weeks and the hair algae started to die. So I think if you continued and reduced feeding to every 2 to 3 days and lighting schedules dropped from 12 to 8 hours a day you'd have a lot of great results.

Edited August 5, 2020 by TerraIncognita

[Ash1176]

I agree on going slow with dropping the dose. It would allow more time to see things change. Just got to watch out for nutrients not hitting zero, just trying to keep balance and be prepared to see nutrients go back up after the dosing is finished 

[mipster]

51 minutes ago, Ash1176 said:

Yeap, I would have a plan for after vibrant

Ya 100% something I'll need to sort out! I've been talking to some guys I know from my local club to brainstorm ideas too. There are just so many different ways of doing things lol 

 

22 minutes ago, TerraIncognita said:

And then maybe slowed dosing down like every other week for 8 weeks 

I'm going to be starting dosing once every 2 weeks as per the Vibrant instructions for when you don't have a severe infestation. Especially considering this is an itty bitty tank and I don't want to overwhelm it. It was interesting reading that R2R thread started by the Vibrant creators. They use it on their customer tanks as part of the regular maintenance dosing schedule, they don't stop. 

 

 

My tank is also doing pretty solid with the coraline growth considering I started with 100% dry rock and it only got wet on April 26th.

 

Here is a little video I just took showing the coraline as well as zooming in on one of the patches of the Ulva. It's the largest patch so the easiest to see with my crappy phone lol One of my poor duncans is still pissed from when it fell onto the Richordea Mushroom, I really have to glue that guy down. But you can also see the new baby head coming in!

 

 

 

[Ash1176]

Wow the coraline has really kicked off.. 

got a bit on my acan plug hopefully that will start off too! 
need to get an insta for my tank too hahaha

[mipster]

13 minutes ago, Ash1176 said:

Wow the coraline has really kicked off.. 

got a bit on my acan plug hopefully that will start off too! 
need to get an insta for my tank too hahaha

Ya! It was funny, after the black out for the dino, I opened the garbage bag and I noticed the start of the coraline spread and it's just gone crazy since then. The only source I had we a frag plug that was covered.

 

Literally the only reason I got instagram for my tank was to make it easier to post videos on here  I wasn't going to originally. But the funny thing is, somehow other reefers keep finding my account and following it with zero effort on my part lol 

[mipster]

Here were photos from a month ago so you can see how fast the coraline has taken over:

 

 

 

[Tamberav]

4 hours ago, mipster said:

I have a good amount and variation of clean up crew in here and nothing has been touching it. I even went and got cowrie snails specifically for the ulva and no interest.

 

Was this what happened when you tried it?

I don't use it...I have a bottle that I got for free but I have never found a use for it..but it is pretty well documented that some people experience green cyano or dino from vibrant on bigger forums. Likley it messed with the biological nitch and it also has a bit of carbon dosing in it. It does not come without risks.

 

Tuxedo urchin...emerald crab...and hermits would be my go to over snails unless it's a Mexican turbo. I would love ulva but I can't keep stuff from eating it...boo..

 

I had some pest macro less tastey then ulva and I added an emerald and he make it non existent. 

[TerraIncognita]

Some people do like ulva.

 

im actually a big fan of the red macro algae that kind of looks like vines/ivy.

 

a lot of people don’t like it, but I always let it grow I think it’s cool.

[mipster]

Just now, TerraIncognita said:

Some people do like ulva.

For sure but in such a small tank, I see it becoming a pest really easily. It was already starting to crowd some of my Zoas before I ripped out a bunch yesterday

 

Also of the reading I've done on Vibrant and Cyano, I'm seeing a correlation coming from people with large total tank dominating infestations and the large quantities of dead algae feeds the cycano - or at least that is a common theory I've seen floating around on the threads I've been reading on it here and R2R. I'm still willing to give it a shot knowing of the potential side effects. Maybe I'll lower the dose slightly so it takes longer to work but is also less of a possible problem? Like maybe 0.8 ml once every 2 weeks. There is only around 10 gallons of water in the tank so the standard dose would have been 1 ml every 2 weeks for a minor infestation.

 

Dinos seem to be a problem after Vibrant as their nutrients have completely bottomed out. I'm not too worried about this as I feed very heavily to keep my little Sunny happy and my nutrients are higher then they should be. I will be carefully monitoring this with daily Nitrate testing once I start the dosing regime for the sake of curiosity and documenting the fun ride for the lovely nano-reef community. 

[TerraIncognita]

8 minutes ago, mipster said:

For sure but in such a small tank, I see it becoming a pest really easily. It was already starting to crowd some of my Zoas before I ripped out a bunch yesterday

 

Also of the reading I've done on Vibrant and Cyano, I'm seeing a correlation coming from people with large total tank dominating infestations and the large quantities of dead algae feeds the cycano - or at least that is a common theory I've seen floating around on the threads I've been reading on it here and R2R. I'm still willing to give it a shot knowing of the potential side effects. Maybe I'll lower the dose slightly so it takes longer to work but is also less of a possible problem? Like maybe 0.8 ml once every 2 weeks. There is only around 10 gallons of water in the tank so the standard dose would have been 1 ml every 2 weeks for a minor infestation.

 

Dinos seem to be a problem after Vibrant as their nutrients have completely bottomed out. I'm not too worried about this as I feed very heavily to keep my little Sunny happy and my nutrients are higher then they should be. I will be carefully monitoring this with daily Nitrate testing once I start the dosing regime for the sake of curiosity and documenting the fun ride for the lovely nano-reef community. 

Scientifically based on what you’re saying by a good water change schedule mixed in you’d then be removing nutrients from the dead dinos slowing down the Cyno.

 

also vibrant claims to handle ALL algae so I still don’t understand how or why it would make it worse.

 

i think people are altering something different than it have some components that the original vibrant creators don’t use or have.

 

someone mentioned something about activated carbon.

 

there seems to be maybe some other components that could cause Bibrant to produce other effects.

 

id try to mimick the creators as closely as possible.

[mipster]

1 minute ago, TerraIncognita said:

Scientifically based on what you’re saying by a good water change schedule mixed in you’d then be removing nutrients from the dead dinos slowing down the Cyno.

100% you must continue to maintain good tank maintenance as per manufacturer's instructions. I will be continuing my regular weekly routine of blowing off the rocks, syphoning some of the sand bed and 20% water change while using Vibrant. It will be interesting to see how she goes and what happens but I feel ready to tackle whatever might come up. We shall see if I live to regret those words but the adventure is half the fun. 

[Ash1176]

Did you see this already? 

 

you were saying about keeping things clean with cables and stuff...

 

im thinking about popping the lid off! Hahaha after All the light upgrades... but this is something I’d consider if I did go down that road 

[TerraIncognita]

2 minutes ago, Ash1176 said:

Did you see this already? 

 

you were saying about keeping things clean with cables and stuff...

 

im thinking about popping the lid off! Hahaha after All the light upgrades... but this is something I’d consider if I did go down that road 

I have the skimmer so that wouldn’t work.

 

but I’ve been thinking about getting rid of my skimmer.....

 

How do you have your back chambers set up right now? Anywhere to buy a back chamber media basket?

[mipster]

1 minute ago, Ash1176 said:

Did you see this already?

Ya I have seen that but with needing the fan to keep things cool with all this hot weather, I can't use that cover at the moment. Plus I have all my cables routed out the "official" side of the tank because I don't have might set up properly in a peninsula orientation which also means the cables would be more visible if I moved the cables to the back and used the cover lol