Peroxide saves my Tank! With pics to Prove It!

[SlowGoing]

The H2O2 diluted can be found at a CVS/Walgreens/Walmart, correct?

[brandon429]

yes it will say 3% on the label

 

then if some rocks are being fully dipped in a bucket of the solution, some posters are mixing 50% clean tankwater and 50% 3% solution to make a 1.5% solution which is slightly less damaging to the life forms on the rock when a whole dip is needed to beat a really bad infestation. if accessible, its better to just drip/drop a few drops of the 3% right on the target algae, wait, then rinse like so many have done. this keeps the peroxide right on the target. In your particular case where after treatment some of the peroxide will get back in your tank within the water where the fish are left swimming, using the 1.5% as the target solution will still work to kill the algae and be even that much safer when it runs back down to some degree into the lower water. even a 1.5% target solution application will kill the algae you have.

[Mojorizn]

Been dosing my 65 mixed reef for 4 days now with 6ml added after lights out.

Did a 10g WC after day 3.

 

I have seen zero negative affects on any of my Zoas, SPS, Clam, LPS, Fish. I have noticed a reduction in the overall amount of what I believe are diatoms covering the rocks.

 

So far so good ... nice and slow ... nice and slow.

Using a Turkey baster and extra power head to keep all the die-off suspended = filtered out.

[brandon429]

sounds awesome take pics!

[mrg02d]

sounds awesome take pics!

I dipped about 6 frags in 50/50 solution of the 3% and then just put them right back into my tank. This seemed to piss off much of my tank. My acans were sucked in tight. My torch was sucked in tight. A few others seemed upset as well, but all look fine today (about 3 days now). Most of the algea is gone from the frags.

 

Oh, I also noticed my damned xenias were upset looking. Id love to eradicate them for good. They have taken over and bothered most of my sps corals to death. I had breathtaking sunset montis dye on me when the xenias grew up on them. I had to pull half my rocks to cut the xenia issue down to size.

 

I wonder if I could make a more condensed H202 and squirt it on them? I could boil off much of the water in the 3% solution and squirt them with it. The only problem is, they currently have a stronghold on a rock that I cannot get out of the tank. (A red monti cap has grown wild and I have the awful eurobracing on the top of my tank).

 

Matt

[nathanq.inc]

So I treated my pink birdsnest on Friday, this is what it looked like before the treatment

 

And now this is what it looks like, Monday

 

Tips are pretty bleached from where the algae was most prominent. This will recover yeh? the other areas have pretty decent polyp extension (from what i've been used to anyway). Any way to speed up the recovery? All the algae is dead on it pretty much.

[Mojorizn]

Doesn't seem the worse for ware. Meaning the dip didn't outright kill the coral.

 

4:1 with a pipette ... got it.

 

Thanks for posting the results.

[patback]

There is no way thatbim reading 28 pages, so forgive me if it's been mentioned, but I dosed about 5 ml into my 10 gallon tank and although it didn't do much for gha, a huge, huge, HUGE ( really, it covered everything but the coral) cyano problem was completely gone within 20 minutes. It tinged the water red, and took about 2 50% water changes to get rid of the color, but I was cyano free for about a month, before I over fed and skipped a water change. All corals at the time were fine, but it pissed off my candy cane and torch. Mushroom, zoas, and rose cups were perfectly normal, hidden cups were fine, encrusting clams were fine, and the clove polyps shrunk noticeably, and regrew like a week later. As a last resort, I recomend peroxide for cyano.

[Mojorizn]

Stay away from the LED threads then (@150+ pages and going ....^

[aklee987]

To recap what I've used peroxide for:

 

1. Crocea and Maxima clams: took the clams out of the tank, used a syringe to pour peroxide over the sides of the shells. Worked great. No problems with clams. I did this weeks ago and things are still good.

 

2. Pink Birdsnest: dipped entire frag into straight 3% peroxide. It was pissed off for a couple hours. Algae is now gone. I did this 2 days ago and the frag looks good. Though I guess it could still die on me, it's only been 2 days.

 

3. Did not see any negative effects on the tank other than what is noted below

 

Negative effects I've noticed:

 

1. When I dipped my birdsnest, I had 15-20mL peroxide in the container. I was lazy and just threw it in the tank. All SPS got mad for a few hours.

 

 

Has anyone else dipped SPS corals directly? Other than pink birdsnest?

[beefus]

Anyone interested in writing a summary article on how to use peroxide? This is a long thread and it looks like there is a lot of good information here but it would take hours to go through everything.

[patback]

Stay away from the LED threads then (@150+ pages and going ....^

I'm lucky If I get a handful of people to write back to me. I guess I don't talk about enough interesting things.

[brandon429]

will post more detail later but just as a quick update I have been working with 35% food grade for a few different reasons. Yes it will still burn your eye permanently if not careful but there were some justified uses for it I'll post up after work. Poolboy has been vindicated!!!

 

On a quick sidenote I was using roughly an 18% diluted mixture to kill some red mushrooms I want gone. Under those mushrooms during a drain-and-treat my poor little coral banded shrimp was curled up and I didn't see him. I estimate he took 5 or 6 drops of fugly powerful 18%, enough to blind a person, right on the head and body + he sat in it for a few mins while the mushrooms sizzled.

 

Outcome today?

 

Both are still here , the CBS and the mushrooms, it didn't even phase them.

 

 

That catapults coral banded shrimp into a superman-like status of peroxide tolerant while their weak cousins the lysmata cleaners die if you even bring a bottle of peroxide into the room. Looks like Im going to have to go straight 35%, at one single drop, to work those red mushrooms I want them gone~ more updates coming

Edited January 31, 2012 by brandon429

[mrg02d]

To recap what I've used peroxide for:

 

1. Crocea and Maxima clams: took the clams out of the tank, used a syringe to pour peroxide over the sides of the shells. Worked great. No problems with clams. I did this weeks ago and things are still good.

 

2. Pink Birdsnest: dipped entire frag into straight 3% peroxide. It was pissed off for a couple hours. Algae is now gone. I did this 2 days ago and the frag looks good. Though I guess it could still die on me, it's only been 2 days.

 

3. Did not see any negative effects on the tank other than what is noted below

 

Negative effects I've noticed:

 

1. When I dipped my birdsnest, I had 15-20mL peroxide in the container. I was lazy and just threw it in the tank. All SPS got mad for a few hours.

 

 

Has anyone else dipped SPS corals directly? Other than pink birdsnest?

I directly dipped montiporas and they did some stn on me. I'd avoid sps corals if you can, but. Mine were really in need of help! I also noticed that most the tanks corals looked upset when I didn't rinse after the dip. Everything is fine now except those montiporas that I dipped. I am running carbon right now incase it is something else they don't like.

 

Should add that the algae on the plugs is gone.

 

Matt

Edited February 1, 2012 by mrg02d

[brandon429]

thats good to note about montiporas being directly dipped, its neat how many corals we've covered that can tolerate straight 3% contact without harm and those apparently do not. that only reinforces spot treating when at all possible >

 

 

beefus thats my summary of peroxide use... the only for sure safe way is a spot treatment when the target is not submerged in water. a small amount of 3% peroxide applied right to the target while it sits out of water. Full submersion dips obviously work but can endanger nearby nontarget corals, a spot treatment has never been shown to harm tankmates or fail to kill the target, thats the coolest thing about peroxide use I can see and the method that works across 100% of tanks with a target growth unwanted. 3% is easily wielded to win all algae battles.

 

 

 

 

there is a *huge demand/need for systemic dosing practices for large tank keepers. So many of the large tanks (+100 gallon) dont want to drain and treat, or its impractical to lift out sections for external treatment, yet invader X is still wiping out their tank> Im interested in keeping eyes open and watching for trends in dosing ratios (ml's per gallon for example) that are effective while being controllable

[mrg02d]

H202 is acidic isn't it? That's probably the reason sps corals don't like it. Calcium and acid don't get along well.

[brandon429]

List of reef inhabitants we've seen that do NOT tolerate peroxide contact very well

#1 Bristleworms

die when even in the most diluted contact of peroxide

#2 Lysmata cleaner shrimp

#3 coralline algae

#4 decorative macro algae

#5 xenia

 

any use of peroxide outside of the external spot treatment method can cause loss of the top 5 in my opinion, although many peroxide treated tanks ran whole tank dosings with no loss. the list is just an aggregation of what I see as recurring themes across the major peroxide threads online.

 

Using the external spot treatment + rinse + reinstall correctly has a 100% track record across threads (zero loss to unintended animals). Basically my thread at reefcentral nanos frm is a dare for anyone to post before and after pics to the contrary. So far so good.

 

 

 

 

Right when my reefbowl had the most trouble with red brush algae I found Reef Misers thread here...controlled peroxide use was the missing link I needed. Once you take algae/invaders out of the list of possible things that can happen to your reef, use large water changes to offset large feedings, and shine good light coral growth is guaranteed, long term.

 

Its not the only way to kill algae, its just a very quick fix to an age old problem. People hate quick fixes, when one works even tons of before and after pics will not convince but I was convinced after one treatment

Edited February 4, 2012 by brandon429

[muffe]

Love that in the first pic on the fist page the magfloat, a tool to remove algae, is covered in it. Edited February 4, 2012 by muffe

[brandon429]

lol agreed its also equally ironic when tanks with zero phosphate per aquarium test kits have it and had no phosphates before the algae outbreak. some of the infestations cleared in this thread were horrendous. in years past the tanks would have certainly been started over/trashed.

Edited February 4, 2012 by brandon429

[damage31]

I just wanted to post an update on my 1year battle with bryopsis - the most amazing thing may have finally happened - after a strong week long system dose, I believe that all remaining areas have 'disappeared'!!

 

 

I decided to take severe action this past Monday after I had decided that I was either going to win, or kill everything trying. I would not recommend what I did this week to others as I suspect it could very well wipe out a more sensitive tank.

 

I have a 29 biocube, with ~14lbs rock, and a just a few corals (a frogspawn, a torch, a few mushrooms, some richordias). and have been mostly unsuccessful in keeping my tank bryopsis free for the past year after a frag introduced it into my system. had I known then what I know now, I would have thrown that frag out in a heartbeat and not looked back.

 

 

I had been treating the rocks I have individually out of the tank during water changes, by pouring straight 3% onto the rocks and letting them sizzle for a few minutes before rinsing and replacing into the tank.

 

That was keeping it at bay. But each week, I had to do this to keep things 'under control'

 

It was getting old.

 

 

On Monday I decided that I was either going to win the battle, or start the tank over.

 

 

Starting Monday, I dosed 40ml of 3% @8am. On Tuesday I repeated the dose. I skipped Wednesday, and hit it again Thursday and Friday @8am.

 

I just looked at my tank very closely, because at first, I thought I was seeing things.

I I had this huge patch that was always on the front of one of my rocks (i just would never die 100%) that is now completely gone. Gone as in, like it never existed...

 

As I looked around the tank, all of the rocks are now devoid of bryopsis the best I can tell, sans my richordia rock which i treated to a nice long burn session today.

[brandon429]

That is an extremely helpful post you can bet I'll link that one to many peeps on rc who will enjoy your data and dosing amounts

[brandon429]

http://www.reef2reef.com/forums/reef-aquar...efing-tool.html

 

another huge thread from r2r about peroxide use. reading the outcomes across tanks is always helpful to establish consistency in various dosing techniques and amounts, nice thread, the more data the better.

[brandon429]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2126211

 

This thread is helpful because its a poster with a very large tank who can only do systemic doses practically speaking, plus she has stocked animals right off the top of the sensitives list (lysmatas and xenia, no harm)

 

she had an unidentified outbreak of suspended red cyano or (?) and was really having a headache. She'd put up with it for a very long time, like we all used to do.

 

We backed down the systemic dosing to .8ml-.5ml per 10 gallons and the results are in the thread although its harder to read than those posts where a huge amount of green hair algae/bryopsis had disappeared.

 

ReefMiser your thread will soon be the largest peroxide thread on the web. It may take hours and hours of reading to scroll through (plus side links) but its worth it. I don't know how much more proof peroxide detractors will require heh

[Cintax]

My photosynthetic gorgonians seem to tolerate the dip just fine. Trochus snails will also survive direct dip for over three minutes; that being said, red turf algae is pretty resistant.

[Trauma]

does anyone know if this will kill this stuff?

 

I will upload progress pics everyday but not sure if it will work with this stuff

 

Let me know

 

http://s1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii500/traumareefin/