Peroxide saves my Tank! With pics to Prove It!

[icy.bing]

Hi Guys,

 

I recently just setup my 12g and now i am finding that on the glass and on my LR there are large amount of Bryopsis. Currently, I only have my clean up crews in there (snails/hermits). I am just wondering do you guys think it will be a good idea if i drain the water and just spray the H2O2 all over my tank and rocks? (no corals atm)

 

If so, could someone help me with what kind of H2O2 I should buy and do I need to dilute it before spray or what?

 

I am very new to the whole dosing thing as algae problem never really exsisted in my wife's tank.... Interesting enough, we use the same water.... =_=

 

Please help...

[brandon429]

based on the description you provided, nothing in there but rocks, you really cant go wrong. we have been using 3% from the store...spray or wipe on, however, its not particularly deadly to rock bacteria etc there are just some higher animals that dont tolerate it well. post a full tank shot if you'd like and we can get specific. some people prefer to use the magnesium boosting system, either that or peroxide may or may not work and neither is particularly harmful to try.

[icy.bing]

the picture was taken when I initially setup the tank.... so I just circle the places where the bryopsis are!

 

the bottom tank front and back are full w/ them... =_=

 

 

AND thy are in the breeding box too on the back left of the picture.. I took down the ac110

[brandon429]

Oh thats an easy tuneup and a great tank. all growth on the glass should be razor scraped ideally, leaving only the rock targets.

 

lift each rock out, hold above the sink, pour peroxide from a new unopened bottle messily right across the target areas (ie what Ive done in my tank a hundred times now) and let it sit on a towel outside for 2 mins. rinse or dont rinse and put back in tank, doesnt matter.

your tank has such open access this would be the way Id handle pretty much everything even though other methods may make better preventatives after this first burn. you can be ultra precise and control the runoff or just pour it on. it will lighten coralline a little but that comes back where it contacts.

 

in three days the algae will be dead and you can either repeat that process or get totally lucky with any conventional method and never need it again. heck of a cheat tho.

[icy.bing]

the only problem is that I also have sand now LOL

 

does that make a difference? it is growing on the substrate too =(

[brandon429]

I would simply hand remove, lift out those portions and replace with clean sand. no need to dose the whole tank yet and that method is slow anyway compared to these external treatments

[icy.bing]

nice... do you reconmment 100% water change?

[brandon429]

I do them all the time, there is no harm if you want to. but most of this treatment is external where hardly any gets back in the tank so it may not be needed. I use full tank changes strategically...to cram more food into the system. since my tank is tiny, once a week I feed a month's worth and then shortly after rip all the water and uneaten back out. its the pouring back in that matters, dont kick up a cloud of waste. regarding matching params, I roughly match temp by a few degrees and I roughly match the salinity of the changewater. the reason I dont go right for whole tank dosing first run is simply because its slower to kill the target, it doesnt cause any mass casualties or anything wasnt sure if thats why you were asking about water changes. full changes are great depending on your fish loading and how you would handle that... but you may not need them.

[icy.bing]

Ok, decisions are made... LOL I am going to take the sand out, and wash it in diluted peroxide ffs... the whole tank i am going to wash with it...

[Gooburz]

Well after a massive water change, hardcore cleaning, 72 hours in total darkness, and running Phosguard it looks like I've beaten it! I've had the lights on for 5 hours total today and not a trace of that nasty stuff (fingers crossed). If for some reason it does come back then I will peroxide the tank. Tomorrow will be another cleaning of filter, power heads, and major water change.

[tajaba]

We do H2O2 injections all the time to kill algae in FW, now I know you can do this aswell on SW!
wonder if anyone tried injecting some Aiptasia with H2O2

[brandon429]

they have reported it a few times Ive seen. didnt have any myself to try it on or I would have zapped em to see what happened. I burned all mine out with blue jet flame lighters and a tank drain years ago lol.

[icy.bing]

i've done a massive clean up yesterday and used like 3 bottles of peroxide... haha... do I need to actually scrub down the bryopsis on the rock or can i leave them on and let them die?

[brandon429]

you can leave them on to die it makes for better follow up pics to catch that process. the waste stored within is negligible, nothing in comparison to the meaty feeding of one single day. on a dinner plate, the steak counts for more than the lettuce same here, its nbd to let it die in the system.

[icy.bing]

quick update...

 

the tank is now cleaned!!! my god... i am so happy... the hermits are eating the almost dead bryopsis! =D

[brandon429]

can we get a follow up pic hurry before its back to perfect lol

[icy.bing]

well its kinda late.. ahahah... the hermits ate them all in like 2 days...

[jedimasterben]

Either today or tomorrow I'm going to start a massive, massive cleaning of my corals, clams and rocks that are all covered in various algaes, cyano, and dinoflagellates. Wish me luck!

[brandon429]

only if you make before and after sets

[jedimasterben]

Well, it juuuussstt so happens that my sister left her DSLR with me accidentally.

[brandon429]

that is going to look smashing. I dont even have a nice cam all my vids and cam is apple products lol. now that rc heli's are part of the hobby spectrum Im looking into flyable nikon cams that will do my high res vid and stills as well.

 

I wish I could be off the peroxide train regarding tank care but its just too convenient of a cheat. hooked man, hooked.

[jedimasterben]

No part of it looks smashing, unfortunately.

 

EDIT: well, unless you count how hard the algae is smashing my corals in the face.

[andi.rahl]

I have 2 different things going on in my tank. There's rusty colored stuff on some of my rocks, and there's tiny blade of grass type algae on one of my rocks. I'm thinking that I'll just take the rock out if it doesn't go away with some peroxide, but I can't tell if the rust stuff is diatoms or cyano :/ the rust stuff seems powdery.

[icy.bing]

one thing i want to let people know is that my tank is currently going through another cycling process after the peroxide treatment... so yah... lol there still some draw back to it...

[sean151]

Are you sure it's from the peroxide? Did you have a bunch of detritus that was interlocked with the algae? Or it could be a byproduct of the cleanup crew turning the nutrients back into the nitrogen cycle faster than the bacteria that was possibly limited previously because algae was fighting for nutrients.