Vibrant eats Sponges

[ActiveAngel]

Just FYI for those interested. I’ve been dosing vibrant in my large reef tank, am currently aroundweek 4, and noticed my Purple Plating Photosynthetic (PPP) Sponge is just a skeleton and soon-to-be dust. If you have any designer sponges you want to keep, and also plan on dosing Vibrant to eat up any algae, you may choose to move the sponge to another system beforehand.

For anyone concerned about me, don’t be, I’m good! I love this sponge but I half expected this to happen. Sponges are a very old and simple organism, taxonomically speaking, so I suspected that they would be targeted by the bacteria along with algae, which share many similar characteristics. Suspecting this in advance, I moved a 2” frag of this fast-growing sponge to my Anemone tank a few months ago, and it is still growing strong there.

(On a related note: Chemiclean and Erythromycin also are not sponge-safe, based on my past similar experiences.)

Now, I can share this discovery with y’all, to prevent future disasters in each other tanks! Happy Reefing!

 

[Eric_n_Ga]

I have a purple sponge that took a hit with vibrant. It's doing ok now .

 

[jcook54]

On the plus side, there seems to be a chemical solution for invasive sponges, if there is such a thing. @Eric_n_Ga did you have a sponge that was encapsulating a caulastrea or something like that? Am I getting my reefers mixed up?

 

[ActiveAngel]

Yeah, great point; actually, both a chemical solution (Chemiclean, eryth) and a biological one (vibrant)!

 

[hzheng33]

I tried it previously but unfortunately it didn’t make a dent on my pineapple sponge population.

 

[Doberman13]

I am on my 4th week as well. I just started to notice that pineapple sponges are breaking loose when blowing off my rocks with a turkey baster. I did accidentally dose twice the first week, that could be the reason.

 

[Eric_n_Ga]

On the plus side, there seems to be a chemical solution for invasive sponges, if there is such a thing. @Eric_n_Ga did you have a sponge that was encapsulating a caulastrea or something like that? Am I getting my reefers mixed up?

Yup , it actually started to die off when i was using vibrant, it's doing better now actually . It's kinda like my canary in a coal mine . I can tell when something is off by the texture of that sponge .

 

[tbrennan]

So has anybody notice vibe killing cheato?

 

[Eric_n_Ga]

So has anybody notice vibe killing cheato?

Nope

 

[Doberman13]

I made the mistake of pulling out a too much cheato right before starting vibrant and now it seems like all of it is now gone. Some caulerpa that was mixed in with the chaeto has grown like a weed.

 

[tbrennan]

I made the mistake of pulling out a too much cheato right before starting vibrant and now it seems like all of it is now gone. Some caulerpa that was mixed in with the chaeto has grown like a weed.

Ya I have had an explosive growth of my cheato the past couple of weeks. Then all of a sudden two days after week 3 of dosing vibe it has taken a dive to almost nothing. Nitrates are stable at 5ppm and phosphate is stable at 0.1 Don’t know what the deal is. All parameters have been what they are now for about two weeks or so.

 

[ActiveAngel]

So I have 3 tanks currently, all of which were started with dry rock, yadda yadda yadda...

After testing Vibrant separately on all 3 tanks, I now suspect that it contains cyanobacteria as well. Just FYI for anyone considering using it. I still think it’s a solid product!

 

[hzheng33]

People have reported cyano outbreak after vibrant. Don’t know if vibrant contains cyano or if the vibrant causes the nutrient level to bottom out and cause cyano

personally when I used vibrant, it bottoms out both my nitrate and phosphate

 

[ActiveAngel]

@hzheng33 Yeah, you’re totally right. While I can’t rule out entirely that cyano was in the tanks previously, I have doubts.

More info, for curious readers:
Tank 1) Large mixed reef tank. Fish and coral. Moderate feeding rate. ~0 dissolved nutrients (utilized by fish and coral). Previously had 1 strain of cyano, bubble algae, and turf algae from Algae Barn (The only time I didn’t QT because they sent it late and I was catching a plane). Cyano was immediately addressed with Chemiclean, killed it off when it was young, no sightings in over a year. The turf algae got bad, so I turned to vibrant. It worked great... but then cyano strain #2 appeared afterwards. Very distinct from the first cyano. ...fast forward several months...

Tank 2) Coral tank, no fish. Never/rarely fed. Little to no nutrients. Spots of bubble algae from the same algae barn order. But nothing else negative over a couple years. Vibrant was used several months after using on the main reef. Water change to remove nutrients from sandbed and bubbles. Little to no nutrients still... but cyano #2 still appeared after vibrant.

Tank 3) Anemone tank (2 Ocellaris, ~30 anemones, a few softies), Overfed tank, no algae issues. Just regular film algae. Vibrant wasn’t needed but applied anyways. Cyano strain #2 again appeared at the end of vibrant.

It’s a possible but unlikely coincidence that the same strain of cyano appeared 3 times in 3 tanks, and each coincidentally only after using vibrant for several weeks. It’s more probably that cyano #2 was laying dormant, and spread through the air of my house to the other tanks (in a different room)... but the timing would still be a coincidence.

IMO... it’s most probable that cyano was in the bottle, as this would explain the appearance of the same cyano 3 times, in all 3 tanks, and the perfect timing of all 3 appearances.

 

[Eric_n_Ga]

I used it one time and almost instantly had a cyano outbreak. Hmmmm