Dosing Hydrogen Peroxide - The best kept secret for algae and dinos

[toomanytanks352]

Here is my original post from my local reef forum to share with a broader audience:

 

http://www.o-r-c-a.org/forum/showthread.php?t=21735

[brandon429]

I'm glad you posted that, what that shows is more confirmation of the repeating details about how it works as a broadcast doser, what it stresses etc, all good info.

 

He got lucky with the dinos they are hard to beat, but reports of them doing well with peroxide are numerous as the years go by

[bdevillier19]

I'm glad you posted that, what that shows is more confirmation of the repeating details about how it works as a broadcast doser, what it stresses etc, all good info.

 

He got lucky with the dinos they are hard to beat, but reports of them doing well with peroxide are numerous as the years go by

so with h2o2 doisng, is it best to use 3% or 35% and at what dosage per gallon? i've seen use 3 or 35 and dose any where from 1ml/gal to 10ml/gal?

[brandon429]

It does range

 

I put only 35% in my tank because when I want something burned I want it blackened lol but 99% of any peroxide use on the web is 3%

 

The right way to know about dosing is to google any key words about peroxide, select the largest threads you can find, and read them to see what others did, before dosing ones tank

 

Adding to the top water is the last order of operations to select even though everyone does that first. Nobody really knows how and why it works sometimes, but those large threads show repeating variables, and before and after pics that will match any given problem tank, and thats the best prep we have to use on any tank. The common dose is one mil per ten gallons a few times a week as the most generalized summary, but the threads show many other ways to dose alternatively which includes things like using diabetic syringes to inject the targets and other ways of underwater concentration

 

Peroxide use in reefs is five years established and one of the top four methods for problem algae control in reefkeeping even though its a relatively new concept. It doesn't work all the time, and neither does magnesium boosting, ats setups, and nutrient control. There are four or five methods that rank highest because each one has a rate of imperfection. As soon as one method becomes universally better, the others fall to the wayside.

 

 

It was said and written in books that nutrient control is the only justified use of efforts for algae control and all else is a bandaid. That implies only one of the four methods is legit, its an incorrect assumption and the primary reason peroxide threads exist is to handle tanks that were already employing nutrient controls quite well before a simple hitchhiker started a war.

 

Natural reefs do not in any way use phosphate control to algae limit a reef, its all manual removal from grazers. Peroxide is a chemical cheat version of that activity.

[GHill762]

does this have any benefits for people without serious algae problems? I read your tank benefits overall because it raises ORP, but I've never understood the ORP thing anyway.

[brandon429]

truly id guess it's harmful to the overall tank but tolerable to most except algae. After five years that's what I think lol.

 

imo it comes down to percent water changed at wc intervals

 

us nano keepers need less orp support than those who stave off water changes due to volume. ..in the 90s it was a big deal to inject ozone and run mv measures of orp, the theory being the constant tradeoff of organic decay and oxygen can be skewed away from hydrogen positive reduction, acid generation/tinted water due to organic loads, towards crystal clear high o2 water.

 

managing the breakdown of organics in the water is direct orp control. waiting until accumulations break down in the system and fighting that trend with ozone is alt orp control. by rip changing my tank water often, my orp is wonderful. I just did a 200x full volume water change last week, flushed out everything. I'm now riding the 500mv wave for a while with no gas treatment.

 

Since the advent of using bug killer as coral dips, who is really anyone to say something is good or bad as a reef supplement. my own tank is supposed to be lowest common denominator cheap so I wouldn't be using or considering peroxide were it not for that devil red brush algae. There are specific ways to apply peroxide that make it the best brush algae tool on the planet. as soon as my tank was cured independent of nutrients and invaded independent of nutrients I figured someone withheld good info a long time

 

Nutrient control isn't actually a large issue in most, not some, algae invaded tanks. The only reason that sounds backwards is because nutrient control was supposed to work better than it does

 

It is very, very hard to approach a huge diversity of algae issues like is done in the peroxide threads with any kind of phosphate binder. Lots of bleached corals follow...we found over time that preventatives are not removers and are not meant to be applied reactively. That formula stops bleaching and all algae problems.

[GHill762]

what is a water change?

[bdevillier19]

It does range

 

I put only 35% in my tank because when I want something burned I want it blackened lol but 99% of any peroxide use on the web is 3%

 

The right way to know about dosing is to google any key words about peroxide, select the largest threads you can find, and read them to see what others did, before dosing ones tank

 

Adding to the top water is the last order of operations to select even though everyone does that first. Nobody really knows how and why it works sometimes, but those large threads show repeating variables, and before and after pics that will match any given problem tank, and thats the best prep we have to use on any tank. The common dose is one mil per ten gallons a few times a week as the most generalized summary, but the threads show many other ways to dose alternatively which includes things like using diabetic syringes to inject the targets and other ways of underwater concentration

 

Peroxide use in reefs is five years established and one of the top four methods for problem algae control in reefkeeping even though its a relatively new concept. It doesn't work all the time, and neither does magnesium boosting, ats setups, and nutrient control. There are four or five methods that rank highest because each one has a rate of imperfection. As soon as one method becomes universally better, the others fall to the wayside.

 

 

It was said and written in books that nutrient control is the only justified use of efforts for algae control and all else is a bandaid. That implies only one of the four methods is legit, its an incorrect assumption and the primary reason peroxide threads exist is to handle tanks that were already employing nutrient controls quite well before a simple hitchhiker started a war.

 

Natural reefs do not in any way use phosphate control to algae limit a reef, its all manual removal from grazers. Peroxide is a chemical cheat version of that activity.

thanks for the explination. i have read many threads but the information varies greatly and the most common thing i see in an h2o2 thread is you. lol. so i figured i'd grab your attention while you were on the subject. thanks again

[Reefwiser]

I have been using the Oxydator to dose Hydrogen peroxide for 20 years. Safe an measured way of doing this. No mystery to it. has been around since the 60's.