Clam peroxide dip

[Kudo]

Hi!

 

Due to a nasty hair algae and bubble algae problems I've been battling for over 2 years I decided to take the plunge and start all over again with new cycled rocks. I've been cycling these new dry rocks on a bucket for 2 moths. 

 

Anyway, during the transition time, I'm planning on transfering all my corals to a quarantine tank and peroxide diping them on a 3:1 saltwater to peroxide 6% solution in order to avoid the algae contamination to the new system. 

 

The question is: Is it safe to peroxide dip a crocea clam on a diluted solution? How much diluted is safe? There is some algae on the rubble its attached and on clam shell. I'm afraid that only spot treating the shell will not avoid contamination.

 

Thank you!

[brandon429]

we have collected tons of clam treatments in peroxide threads and my opinion is that the dilution weak enough not to kill or stress the clam is too weak to get the algae cure you want

 

also, its impossible not to reimport it although I 100% value your exclusion approach id do the same. What you do when it gets in the new tank is what matters foremost, and that's take action vs any kind of waiting if I could insert unasked for algae opinion lol.

 

when algae grows again, take out the rock and use a steak knife to score out the algae like a dentist uses a plaque tool. rough. make it bleed a bit, make the algae gone via rasping and rinse it all off outside tank.

 

then apply peroxide only to the clean spots just  the same, that's how you amplify an algae treatment to actually have a chance of working. if you solely dip these corals the growback work is certain, although def less bc the initial mass has been strained.

 

Do surgery on the clam

 

remove it to a shallow dish and using metal, scrape/debride things a little more carefully but this is still the primary algae removal over the dip. when the clam is calmly scored clean and rinsed in another bowl, use a q tip and go back over and dot the areas, that precise, holding the mantle up so the liquid drips down towards the foot with brief emersions. I would not use a dip method although its better than using nothing as an algaecide. our surgery method contacts no flesh to peroxide, its all hard surfaces/safe to apply nondiluted.

 

combine hand abrasion with the cheat/solid outcomes.

[holy carp]

Interesting

 

Have you tried a fluconazole treatment?  If you haven't, I would start with that before doing a reboot.  

 

[Kudo]

Brandon,

 

Thank you for the complete instructions. I´ll do the surgery procedure on my clam. Once the corals and clam are on quarantine tank, I'll redo the dip/surgery methods as soon as I spot algae regrowth to minimize introducing algae on the new system.

 

Definitely I learned the hard way the lesson to take action as soon as I spot an algae mat on a rock. 

 

13 hours ago, holy carp said:

Interesting

 

Have you tried a fluconazole treatment?  If you haven't, I would start with that before doing a reboot.  

 

I tried. It only killed the turf algae which is soft and can be easily removed by manually pulling. The more thick wiry hair algae which is very difficult to manually remove from rocks - it kind of roots inside the rock -  floconazole didn't make a dent on it. I tried many other options to remove nutrients from water, feeding less, increasing skimmer skimmate, installing ATS (my last try). My phosphates have always been 0.04 ppm or lower - tested using Red Sea Pro test kit. The only thing I achieved was algae slowed growth but my LPS corals had tissue recession, some died, and my SPS became pale.

 

Besides the algae problem, I want to rearrange the rock layout, change the sand and improve water circulation. So I decided that a reboot would be good to make all these changes.

[Kudo]

Just to give a feedback: I treated the crocea clam and all clean up crew (hermit crab, nerite and trochus snalis shells) using a paintbrush and pure 6% peroxide just like Brandon told me. It worked like a charm on these animals without any visual harm to them.

 

I also treated the corals with the 3:1 diluted solution and seemed to work.  However now I am seeing a slowly growing back of GHA on some rocks and a lot of growth on my quarantine tank walls. I seems that the die off caused by peroxide increased the phosphate levels on my quarantine (0.36 ppm measured with Red Sea Pro test kit) and boosted algae growth. I'll try to make another peroxide dip on the corals and rocks and remove algae from quarantine walls as much as I can.

 

 

[HarryPotter]

And water changes, to deal with phosphate.