Peroxide saves my Tank! With pics to Prove It!

[Lnm130]

I used it on a trouble spot, pretty sure it was just hair algea. During a water change I took the rock out and poured some peroxide in the area (didn't touch the corals with it) Let it sit for a few, gave it a dunk in the old tank water, put it back in the tank.

 

Couple of days later and the algae was gone. So is the coraline, but I'm ok with that...it will come back shortly.

 

Now that I know it works, I'm going to spot treat my rocks when I move in 5 weeks. Since I'll be tearing down the tank anyway, I might as well!

[Neya]

Nice pics Steviebe. I wouldn't recommend dosing the whole tank. Just stick with dipping rocks, or with targeting algae out of the tank with H2O2 and putting the rock back in after a couple of minutes. Several people have had negative effects from dosing the whole tank, nobody has had bad effects from the other 2 options.

 

I was dosing the hole tank for hair/bryposis, not sure which one.

 

It helped a small bit, but dose (1ml per 10gal) was affecting my anemones way too much. I stopped treatment. It seemed to bother my halimeda a little, but now its growing well again. Didn't seem to bother other macros (caulerpa). It only slowed growth of HA at that point, maybe it was killing it off, I cannot tell as I stopped after 7 days.

 

I did dip sps, rocks, etc. In a fairly significant dosed dip, (2+ cap full in >2gal) sps (birdsnest, monti cap) didn't blink an eye. Most Zoa didn't mind at all, excluding one pink (coco pink) which it altered the color in dramatically... Color came back after 3-7days.

However, caulerpa, and hair algae died. I have one rock I cannot treat, and its by far the worst. It's drilled/epoxied/posted into the base structure. Ugh. I'd have to do a %75 water change just to expose it. Why THAT particular rock.

Edited June 6, 2011 by Neya

[Reef Miser]

Murphy's Law of course

[DFL18]

I'm thinking of dosing my whole tank (28g nanocube) (transferred all remaining livestock to a friends tank) to combat anything that may have caused my massive aptasia outbreak and to treat the tank in general before I set it up again.

 

I think if I treat the whole tank (basically water, pumps, and whatever has grown in the back chamber) it will definitely help clean anything negative before I break it all apart.

[Neya]

Murphy's Law of course

Of course!

 

When switching to RODI (finally) I emptied most of the tank and used a toothbrush to peroxide that particular rock. Let it sit, refilled.

 

2 hrs later algae was white. Last night the clean up crew was all over it. Today - it is gone. Yay.

 

Here's hoping it will not return - at least not quickly.

[brandon429]

across forums over the last month this is the 100th success story Ive read about it, really.

[captainbastard]

Another bit of info I forgot to include, this stuff is like insecticide for pods. My feather dusters are absolutely untouched by it though.

[brandon429]

I found my pods to not be affected but then again I don't dose the tank.

Lately in cleaning the glass with it, about a capful is put into my tank (1 gallon) as it slides down the glass into the quarter inch of water at the bottom (the tank is drained while Im doing peroxide work)

 

I usually fill up the tank, then drain and refill if Ive used alot and I know a lot is in the standing water upon first refill.

 

After that all things are normal in the tank, so to establish lethality to amphipods I think a timeline and a dosage amount is needed. Theres at least one or two ways to use the peroxide and not zap anything in the system other than the target organism

[Neya]

Pods were not affected when I dosed the whole tank, but I did 1ml per 10gal. When I did dips they definitely made a run for it, not as bad as bristle worms though. Bristle worms HATE h202.

 

The areas I spot treated (with tank mostly drained)are now gone. But even better, is the continuous die back from closeby areas I did not hit with h202. Im not sure if this is cause some mixed in with water where I treated, or just the switch to rodi, or a combo. The areas not spot treated didnt turn white and die off, they just were green one day, gone the next.

[imchee]

I removed a good sized LR out of the tank and placed it in a bucket. Doused it straight from the bottle undiluted. Then I used a turkey baster to reuse any HP that drained to the bottom of the bucket. I left it in the open air while it was bubbling or sizzling for about 5 minutes before rinsing with old tank water and then back into the tank.

 

Will keep an eye on the progress of the treated bryopsis and any other issues with the coral etc.

 

Update:

Some of the bryopsis turned white almost immediately after treatment. Checked on it this morning and most of it turned white overnight. I still see 1 green tuft I must have missed. The turbo has been feeding exclusively on this rock since I put the rock back in.

 

Even after rinsing the rock with old tank water there must have been residual HP in the rock because the zoas all closed up and the blasto swelled up a lot. Acans and chalice showed no signs of reaction. It took about 4 hrs for the zoas to start opening up.

 

I will test the water tonight to see if the dying crap affected the water quality.

Edited June 13, 2011 by imchee

[brandon429]

thank you thats very helpful, in this thread we are getting to see many percentages and dosing applications at work. Its a tragedy this isn't stickied, a solution for algae control that works in every tank is a big deal, old methods don't work or they wouldn't be as hit and miss as they are. People take that statement to mean I think we should favor terrible water params etc, I dont, but a lot of the algae in this thread happened in the face of great water params and peroxide was the cutting edge that tipped the scales in favor of the keeper.

 

This method is the best technique Ive seen in a decade, thats why I think it should be stickied lol but even if not lets just make 20 pages of proof that w leave their heads scratchin'

 

post pics if you can of your before and after shots, nothing sells like pics

[brandon429]

success story on peroxide # 104 lol

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...p;#entry3407977

 

the stuff is pure, unmitigated warlock in a bottle

[imchee]

I didn't take pics of before the treatment but it was pretty well covered in algae. This is about 24hrs and all the corals, snails and fish appear to be fine. Even the star serpents have found their way back to that rock.

 

I will still need to treat again as I missed a few spots. Will be a couple of days before I get a chance to test the water. So far so good!

[brandon429]

that looks great I can tell its a big reduction. Excellent thanks for pics!!! would you list your dosing method so others with a similar situation have some comparables I will go back and look for it as your outcome has been great and I want to memorize it

Edited June 14, 2011 by brandon429

[captainbastard]

I still have my worst, largest, rocks to do. I will post pics before/after. I am not dosing the tank, I am soaking in a bucket with tank water and peroxide. I might do the water change/spray bottle trick as its very hard to remove those rocks. Will keep you guys informed

Edited June 14, 2011 by captainbastard

[imchee]

Yeah I think larger rocks that you don't want to remove will be more of a challenge. Draining & refilling while exposing the inhabitants to high concentrations of run-off doesn't sound like something I'd want to try ... yet

[TAttel]

I got to say this works and it is pretty easy to do to some extent. I want to thank Brandon429 and Reef Miser b/c I was so freakin tired of bryopsis that was going insane. I corrected everything I could and changed water almost every 3 days. It had just flat out taken over. I started reading some of there posts and went for it.

 

I dipped 3 rocks and in about 4days the crap was gone. Didn't hurt any of my palys. I did lose a hard coral though be careful with those and it instantly killed sea stars(luckily i have hundreds of them)

 

I simply used about a gallon of water and 2/3 cup peroxide(actually kind spot poured it on too)

 

2 weeks out and so far no grow back and coraline coming back. My only issue is the big rocks on the bottom.

[Reef Miser]

H2O2 as freshwater algaecide in aquaculture.

 

A kind of boring read, but a couple things can be taken from it.

 

Different higher organisms respond to HP differently

 

The same higher organisms respond to HP differently depending on their life stage.

 

The mechanism by which peroxides work is corrosive oxidation which damages unicellular structures.

 

Although cell lysis (popping) doesn't always occur at more dilute concentrations, it can still impact there behavior/function.

 

 

To be honest I didn't read every word of the article, but thought it was good to see some published literature that is somewhat related to what we are doing here.

 

As a side note, the highest concentration they used in this study was 12,500ug/mL, which is equal to 1.25%

[brandon429]

that is very helpful thanks!!

[evilc66]

I wonder if a paste could be made with h2o2 and something like baking soda? Obviously you would have to be careful with the baking soda for a number of reasons, but it could be left on areas that are hard to remove from the tank, and you don't want to dose the whole tank. You probably wouldn't need much to act as a binder. You just want it to be heavier than the basic h2o2 to it doesn't disperse into the water column as easy.

Edited June 14, 2011 by evilc66

[imchee]

now there's a money making idea right there!!

[Reef Miser]

Oxi-clean

 

You could try Kalk. I made kalk paste for aiptasia and it stuck around for awhile until it slowly dissolved. You may not even need the H2O2 for that to burn the algae. I don't know that you could cover as much, as quickly with that.

[Reef Miser]

I found on wikipedia that H2O2 and sodium bicarbonate can be made into a paste and used as a homemade toothpaste. So there aren't any crazy reactions that happen when the two are mixed like when bicarb is mixed with a strong acid. And sodium bicarb will just swing pH, so it sounds like a good idea to me as long as it's a little at a time and pH is monitored.

Edited June 14, 2011 by Reef Miser

[lawnmowerblenny]

Worked in my tank dosing on 6ml with direct blasts to the bryopsis the blue legged hermits did the rest...

[evilc66]

Oxi-clean

 

You could try Kalk. I made kalk paste for aiptasia and it stuck around for awhile until it slowly dissolved. You may not even need the H2O2 for that to burn the algae. I don't know that you could cover as much, as quickly with that.

But kalk will burn the crap out of corals. At least h2o2 will just irritate most corals, and not burn them. I'm just looking for a powder based binder that's inert enough to make it thicker.

 

I guess you could always just grind up flake food and use that. Nail two birds with one stone.

Edited June 14, 2011 by evilc66