Peroxide saves my Tank! With pics to Prove It!

[seabass]

I was thinking of dosing my tank with 1mg/10 gal per what I have read. But before i do that i thought i have read back deep in the thread this would kill my scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp.

IME, dosing peroxide in the tank is not a particularly effective method of removing macro algae; and it has negative effects on several common animals (including cleaner shrimp and certain coral). Spot treatment outside the tank directly on affected areas (rinsed off before returning to the tank) is more effective and has less negative effects.

[brandon429]

sure Id agree w that. go for the ideal. for the large tanks on rc that we treat internally they dont just dose the topwater either, that way should stop being used. if anyone has to take shortcuts to dose without removing rocks, you turn off pumps etc, still the water, and use an underwater concentration technique to maximize contact on your target. works great (less well than external for sure) for algaes other than red brush, bryopsis and neo.

 

it kills macros very well using that technique but rock removal can't be beat. If someone is bound to only treat internally, you do a spot treatment first before taking time to do the whole tank. make note of your projected kill times, then wait two more weeks to see if it grows back and negates the whole procedure before taking time to zap the whole tank. post pics of your prob man lets get specific on it. I expect shrimp death yes if treated internally.

[elmatth1]

Alright, if this doesn't work, I'm quitting this hobby.... again!!!

 

So, here's the deal with my tank, it's a 34 gallon Solana with a sump that runs a skimmer and used to have great cheato growth. I'm running a 250w halide with a mix of 12 RB and Violet LEDs for actinic supplementation about 20 inches from the top of the tank. For the first year and a half of this tank's life I had zero nuisance algae and not much corraline algae growth either in the display. Cheato grew great in the sump, had to throw away a bunch every two weeks. Coral growth was slow and the colors were very pale. Started to lose my SPS so after doing a bit of reading, decided I had too low of nutrients. Started feeding more and dosing Amino Acids to try to help. I was reading zero for ammonia, phosphates, etc.

 

After a couple months, My coral colors started to return, but I guess I overshot the balance between too few nutrients and too many. I now have a huge GHA problem. Tried reducing feedings, skimming wetter, adding GFO (which I had never had to use before), reducing lighting. Didn't work. Tried using Algaefix Marine for the past two months. Algae is mostly unaffected, except for my cheato which turned to mush and died pretty quickly. I even started dosing Algaefix every day instaed of every three days. Only effect was that I lost some SPS and what I didn't lose browned out really bad. LPS aren't extending polyps much. Softies seem relatively unaffected. I pull the algae out by the handful and scrub and blow off the rocks, but in a couple days it looks like I didn't even touch it! The algae is growing on my SPS, on the skeletons of my LPS, and even on top of my GSP.

 

What's my next step? I have three new bottles of 3% H202 sitting here and I'm ready to do what I need to do to finally get rid of this nasty, evil, stuff!

 

Here's a really bad picture of my tank right now.... complete with reflections from nearby items around the tank and all.

 

http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae231/elmatth1/Mobile%20Uploads/20140103_122127.jpg

[Nocturnal]

After I rescaped my tank I got hit with a ton of GHA. My new rock structure meant I was unable to remove pieces so during a water change I did some targeted application of peroxide to a couple rocks that were exposed due to low water level. That algae melted away the next day. I also added a few mexican turbos and those things are making short work of the rest. It's crazy how fast they eat the stuff.

[duganderson]

I have some algae growing on my pink birdnest and setosa SPS corals. I think the algae is a red turf algage.

 

Any idea about how to treat this. Both of these corals are very easy to remove if necessary.

 

Thanks

[elmatth1]

Well, I tried an experiment last night dipping a frag of red forest fire digi in a 1 part tank water/1 part h202 dip to try to kill the GHA that was overcoming most of the frag. Looks like the algae is dying back, but hasn't turned white like others have found. The frag lost what little color it had left and I think it'll be dead by morning. Granted, the frag was in poor health to begin with, but I was expecting a more dramatic response from the algae. I did, however, use a bottle that was opened a couple months ago because I didn't want to go all out just yet with the dip.

 

 

I'm half tempted to just pull out my fish and corals and pour a whole damn bottle of H202 in my tank and let it run!

[brandon429]

Alright, if this doesn't work, I'm quitting this hobby.... again!!!

So, here's the deal with my tank, it's a 34 gallon Solana with a sump that runs a skimmer and used to have great cheato growth. I'm running a 250w halide with a mix of 12 RB and Violet LEDs for actinic supplementation about 20 inches from the top of the tank. For the first year and a half of this tank's life I had zero nuisance algae and not much corraline algae growth either in the display. Cheato grew great in the sump, had to throw away a bunch every two weeks. Coral growth was slow and the colors were very pale. Started to lose my SPS so after doing a bit of reading, decided I had too low of nutrients. Started feeding more and dosing Amino Acids to try to help. I was reading zero for ammonia, phosphates, etc.

After a couple months, My coral colors started to return, but I guess I overshot the balance between too few nutrients and too many. I now have a huge GHA problem. Tried reducing feedings, skimming wetter, adding GFO (which I had never had to use before), reducing lighting. Didn't work. Tried using Algaefix Marine for the past two months. Algae is mostly unaffected, except for my cheato which turned to mush and died pretty quickly. I even started dosing Algaefix every day instaed of every three days. Only effect was that I lost some SPS and what I didn't lose browned out really bad. LPS aren't extending polyps much. Softies seem relatively unaffected. I pull the algae out by the handful and scrub and blow off the rocks, but in a couple days it looks like I didn't even touch it! The algae is growing on my SPS, on the skeletons of my LPS, and even on top of my GSP.

What's my next step? I have three new bottles of 3% H202 sitting here and I'm ready to do what I need to do to finally get rid of this nasty, evil, stuff!

Here's a really bad picture of my tank right now.... complete with reflections from nearby items around the tank and all.http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae231/elmatth1/Mobile%20Uploads/20140103_122127.jpg]http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae231/elmatth1/Mobile%20Uploads/20140103_122127.jpg[/url]

Your pics indicate a prime candidate for this approach

 

to save time and include details that would otherwise get left out the exact steps are listed in the last five pages of this thread

 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359&page=59

 

It saves a huge amount of retyping to just post the link of recent work with it

 

Check out the last five pages pictures and dosing options, post pics here before and after

 

Your isolated spots will literally disappear.

[brandon429]

In nearly every situation where someone wants to dose the tank, I can see clear options to simply lift up the rock, spot apply the algae (factoring sensitive list animals) put back in and post an after shot of a super clean rock two days later.

 

Some of the cure pics in the last five or eight pages of the rc peroxide thread are sick after shots,

[duganderson]

I have some algae growing on my pink birdnest and setosa SPS corals. I think the algae is a red turf algage.

 

Any idea about how to treat this. Both of these corals are very easy to remove if necessary.

 

Thanks

 

Would it be better to just cut off the pieces of the SPS that are covered with algae? Will hydrogen peroxide likely kill the SPS or that portion anyway? I would do a lot of damage to the sps cutting off the algae.

[brandon429]

You would just use creative delivery tubes to spot apply the peroxide only to the target

 

Take coral and base rock if needed out of tank to externally treat

 

3 specific cases of seriatopora algae removal are pictured in the linked thread also, can't recall what page tho lol

 

Vet equine or bovine injection needle and syringe from farm supply for ex

 

Drop at a time

[elmatth1]

Well, removed all rock from my tank and spot treated with H202. Had to rescape because all of my rock was permanently connected together and I had to pull it all apart outside of the tank to treat it. Broke what coral was left on the rock away from the live rock so I could rescape. Ended up with a bunch of new frags outta the deal cause I kept breaking my SPS when trying to remove them. I treated the skeletons of my LPS with H202 while I was at it. I also treated the base of each of my SPS frags as the frag plugs all had hair algae on them. We'll see how everything tolerated the treatment soon enough, I suppose.

[elmatth1]

Hair algae on the rocks and coral bases seem to be lightening in color and turning a bit white. Some sections more so than others. The corals seem to be showing no real ill effects from the treatment. Except my GSP rock, which I treated the entire rock, including the GSP itself. It doesn't appear to be dying, it just hasn't opened back up yet. So i'll just have to wait to see how it fairs in the long term.

 

 

Now, What do I do about the GHA that shows up on my sand bed? My GFO reactor broke when I was cleaning it last week. Should I buy another and run GFO? I need to get some more snails and maybe some hermit crabs, but it's too cold here in Central, IL to ship anything live right now. Plus, I always had a bad experience with hermit crabs eating my snails, even though I had a whole bunch of different sized shells for them to choose from!

[elmatth1]

Here's a pic of the algae on my rocks after treatment:

 

http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae231/elmatth1/Mobile%20Uploads/20140106_115107.jpg

 

My GSP rock after treatment:

 

http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae231/elmatth1/Mobile%20Uploads/20140106_115051.jpg

 

Sorry for the links, I can't figure out how to upload the photos directly into my post.

[seabass]

Phosphate (and to an extent, nitrate) control is a critical component of algae containment. I consider peroxide to be an aid to algae removal (it is also thought to make algae easier or more palatable to herbivores). Herbivores are also valuable in removing algae.

 

So nutrient control, manual removal, external peroxide treatments, and herbivores (used in concert) will get things going in the right direction.

 

To get the URL to post the pics, just right click on the picture and select view image, then copy the URL and use the Image button to add it to your post.

 

Looks like your substrate is pretty coarse. Hair algae doesn't tend to take hold on finer sand. However, you can still siphon the algae out of the sand bed (you'll probably suck up some of the substrate in the process).

[Nocturnal]

It seems like GHA is reluctant to grow on areas already covered by coraline algae. My new base rock is semi covered, but my older pieces that are all purple are clean as a whistle.

 

I got my nitrates back under control and now my turbos are cutting it back nicely.

[Tamberav]

Spot treatment works well too if you can't get the rock out or you don't want to dip an entire coral. A little each day until gone.

[brandon429]

Local nr.com poster works with a binding agent to hold peroxide in contact w submerged targets

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/339351-hair-algae-experiment-successful/

[Nocturnal]

Local nr.com poster works with a binding agent to hold peroxide in contact w submerged targets

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/339351-hair-algae-experiment-successful/

 

Hmm, not a bad idea. I have a couple very heavy spots left that I may try this on.

[brandon429]

please pics before and after if you do I think his idea is just great

[brandon429]

oh I dont think we can allow this bad boy to sink to page two for the first time in 3 yrs now can we

 

new entrant into using peroxide to fight some invasive algae, possibly bryopsis

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/341585-bryopsis-and-hydrogen-peroxide-h2o2-experts-get-in-this-thread/#entry4644534

[Jcrissey]

OK, so after my initial 6 days of treatment since the first out-of-tank bryopsis treatment, bryopsis is returning to the live rock and two coral colonies that are directly underneath my AI Nano. All water parameters are perfect (I learned that API test kits always give a false positive on low-level ammonia). So, with no phosphates or nitrates in my tank for the last week and nothing that would bind them up, why then is bryopsis returning? Temp? Lighting? These are the only other things I can think of.

 

I ordered a pacific lettuce sea slug and a few more snails, will add those to the tank tomorrow when I get them. I dipped the live rock/corals in question last night in a 1:1 solution of tank water and 3% H2O2. Hopefully this will get it to the point where the lettuce sea slug can take over with the eradication.

 

I certainly won't be dosing H2O2 with that awesome invertebrate in my tank. If it can keep bryopsis in check, great. If not, it's on to Kent Tech M and raising mag levels to about 2000.

 

[seabass]

OK, so after my initial 6 days of treatment since the first out-of-tank bryopsis treatment, bryopsis is returning to the live rock

I'm thinking that manual removal and repeated treatments might be necessary.

 

All water parameters are perfect (I learned that API test kits always give a false positive on low-level ammonia).

I've used API ammonia test kits for years and haven't ever experienced this. But that's another subject.

 

So, with no phosphates or nitrates in my tank for the last week and nothing that would bind them up, why then is bryopsis returning?

How did you determine 0ppm nitrate and 0.00ppm phosphate? While I've defended API's ammonia test kit, their phosphate kit is a high range kit (using 0.25ppm increments). You'd need a low range phosphate test kit (with 0.01ppm increments) to determine if your tank is within the target range of 0.03ppm or less. And that only tests for inorganic phosphate; however, the presence of algae indicates organic phosphate. Inorganic phosphate is utilized by algae, plants, and animals (lowing the level of inorganic phosphate in the water).

[brandon429]

listed on the other thread about growback> many algae have deep seated holdfasts that simply regrow until you burn them out. Remember a classic issue in peroxide dosing though, a catch 22 kind of, invaders are allowed to persist- skipping rock to rock, months, and then a single round of peroxide knocks it back but regrowth occurs, and then its given up on.

Thats a very high standard for any doser to meet, a one off dose fixing a months long invasion event. For the times it does, thats why peroxide is so cool lol but usually you just retreat until you win, or move on to another method seeking that one off kill. On top of repeat kills, 3% is weak compared to 35%. I dont waste time with 3% any more in my own tank, but for safety online thats about 99% of whats in this thread. the very first poster to recommend 35% on like page 4 was right and I was wrong, my gelidium would have been beaten faster if id listened lol

the safety factor must be considered, stuff will cook an eye if it gets in.

 

 

as we bounce from method to method, one is likely to attack the bryopsis if not from a combined insult...if you ever come back to peroxide after going mg boosing, consider higher percentages which are a meaner kill when applying externally.

nutrient control has nothing to do with bryopsis control by and large, if you read all the bryopsis threads. whether phosphate is high/low doesnt matter to bryopsis wrecked tanks, just for accuracy sake its also prudent to say we use the term bryopsis lightly to cover lots of similar genera that may actually have different names

In most cases, peroxide is great for the initial cleaning and then other methods can be consulted to reduce or eliminate grow back. It took months and months of application to beat red gelidium algae out of my reefbowl, and in not giving up, its now gone and cannot get back in as I dont add frags anymore


whether or not peroxide is used as the permanent solution isn't important... It's that you took some kind of direct algae on the rock. You can see that peroxide does kill the top growth in a predictable manner regarding non target organisms. It can be a lawn mower tool that ensures nothing ever takes over your rocks again, and there are threads that show both mg and peroxide tanks getting cured, these two methods I rate about equal you just find the combo that works for you using the highlight methods found in both peroxide and mg threads

to say you just took an invasion down a notch to fully under control is accurate, that's what peroxide does best... We know what the sensitive animals are and we work around them.

[Cramsmith]

Okay I started reading through the first 10 pages, trying to get a consensus on how to utilize H202, in-tank, dips, spot treatment, dosage etc

 

I will eventually get through all 53 pages but for now i have GHA, a bit of bubble algae and green/brown algae the appear on the glass. My last testing 3 days ago, Nitrates and phosphates were zero due to Chemipure Elite and Purigen. BTW the tank in question a BioCube 14, with a media rack.

 

I also had kill off due to the water heater malfunction and not turning off, turns out we had a kink in the cord.

 

Anyway, is there a consensus on dose for dipping and a dose for systemic dosing, as I also have GHA on the back wall. My tank at this point is basically fish only (we replaced the fish after the heater malfunction) a couple of zoa are hanging on as is remnants of the acan.

 

any advice will be appreciated.

[brandon429]

quick breakdown

 

the major expected deaths from this treatment are lysmata cleaner shrimp and hosting anemones and xenia. lysmatas for sure, the other two usually just act stressed but dont die. you didnt list any of those so we are good to go

 

you only use in tank, full with water treatments on large setups where people are too lazy to do the right way :)

(said by a man w a gallon reef this is not a fair assumption lol)

 

either a drain and treat, or remove the rocks

 

try to post full tank shot

 

no fish are of a concern w peroxide, none have been found to care much in the last 4 years across forums including all the typical reef fish.

 

this doesnt kill your filter bac

 

the best way is lift out target rock

 

put peroxide from a new bottle on the bad parts leave in the air for 4 mins. rinse off, put back in tank, vaccuum out allthe detritus that was under that rock before replacing. repeat whole tank

 

post follow up pics in 4 days before and after we have a shiny new tank again

 

for back algae scrape off with razor blade, avoid chems where possible

 

remove all detritus from tank

 

if you dont want to remove rocks, you drain tank down, exposing the rocks just the same, treat, rinse, refill tank, drain again to remove all the peroxide, refill, this is harder on fish and not hard on coral (counter to common opinion)

 

so your best bet is simple lift rocks out and rescape after treating. dont bother hand removing the algae we like to watch it turn white and die. its not a lot of nutrients compared to half a days feeding.

 

 

for 2014, I think this should be a sticky. number of tanks cured/spared life is literally hundreds and likely thousands now with the p method across forums. as soon as a better method of tank care comes we should de sticky this and post that.