Issues with Hydrogen Peroxide Use?

[huskerreefatl]

I had read an article about using hydrogen peroxide to get rid of stubborn hair algae so I decided to try it. I took a small rock, that I couldn't get rid of the hair algae on, out of the tank ran some hydrogen peroxide over it, rinsed it with tank water, and then put it back. It is 3 days later and the rock is clean...no hair algae on it at all. There was some coralline algae on it also and at first I thought that it was killed as well but it's color is coming back. In addition to coralline algae, the rock had some polys and zoas. They closed up but are completely open again so there doesn't seem to be any bad effects on them.

This seems to have worked great but I wonder if there are any ill effects that I am not understanding by doing this. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Carl

 

[jbdreefs]

Never done it, but I think it is a pretty popular remedy. It seems like I have read about using a certain mixture of peroxide to water for the dip.

 

[camellia]

JBDreefs;1056417 wrote: Never done it, but I think it is a pretty popular remedy. It seems like I have read about using a certain mixture of peroxide to water for the dip.

+1

I've used it on frags prior to QT and algae never returned...

 

[huskerreefatl]

Are there any corals that should be avoided when doing this? I had read an article that said that you could put 1 ml/10 gallons of water directly in the DT but I am not going to do that. I just rinsed in the rock with peroxide and tank water and put it back in and it seems to have worked great.

 

[jstone]

I actually just did this today - I've changed up my filtration and water flow but still had just a few strongholds. I sprayed and rinsed a few rocks and then dipped a few zoa frags and one blasto - 30 secs in 50:50 water peroxide - as of now all corals looks great and are open even the blasto seems to have no tissue damage... I don't think I'd dip more complex corals maybe just try to spot clean them. I'll update the hair algae status as well as tank params. From my research it seemed like ppl who had bad luck soaked everything too long and had a lot of die off on the rock polluting the tank - spraying them seemed to minimize additional die off- glad to hear ur rocks cleaned up I'm anxiously awaiting seeing my last little sections eraticated

 

[ralph atl]

huskerreefatl;1056425 wrote: Are there any corals that should be avoided when doing this? I had read an article that said that you could put 1 ml/10 gallons of water directly in the DT but I am not going to do that. I just rinsed in the rock with peroxide and tank water and put it back in and it seems to have worked great.

it is perfectly fine to do this outside the tank, please realize that anything it touches it will destroy cells. You want to avoid anything that you want to keep alive.

if you shut off all water flow, you can take a syringe inside the tank and carefully apply to an isolated area inside the tank (for 10 minutes), with a maximum of 10ml per 50 gallons per day.This would be for a treatment of something that either grew back after treatment outside tank, or something that you could't remove in the first place.

 

[jbadd99]

huskerreefatl;1056425 wrote: Are there any corals that should be avoided when doing this? I had read an article that said that you could put 1 ml/10 gallons of water directly in the DT but I am not going to do that. I just rinsed in the rock with peroxide and tank water and put it back in and it seems to have worked great.

At one point a month or so ago, I was dosing triple that amount with no long-term harmful effects.

You just have to keep an eye on your pH and Alk. Everything will get pissed off, but will open back up eventually.

 

[huskerreefatl]

jbadd99;1056435 wrote: At one point a month or so ago, I was dosing triple that amount with no long-term harmful effects.

You just have to keep an eye on your pH and Alk. Everything will get pissed off, but will open back up eventually.

Where you dosing the whole tank to get rid of hair algae? If so, how did it work? If not, then why?

Thanks,
carl

 

[huskerreefatl]

Ralph ATL;1056431 wrote: it is perfectly fine to do this outside the tank, please realize that anything it touches it will destroy cells. You want to avoid anything that you want to keep alive.

if you shut off all water flow, you can take a syringe inside the tank and carefully apply to an isolated area inside the tank (for 10 minutes), with a maximum of 10ml per 50 gallons per day.This would be for a treatment of something that either grew back after treatment outside tank, or something that you could't remove in the first place.

You use a syringe and just squirt the hair algae area? So you are saying to leave the flow off for 10 minutes and then crank it up again? How do the other corals in the vicinity of the area react?

If you do this, what happens to the rest of the tank? Do the other corals get mad and close up? If you have certain types of corals, should this technique be avoided? I rinsed my rock, that has zoas and polys, on it with peroxide and then tank water (out of the tank) and they recovered fine but I must say, the rock is cleaner than ever. I would be worried to do this on more sensitive corals though.

I find this technique interesting because it cleaned that rock off incredibly well. I removed most of the hair algae first with airline tubing while in the tank, then pulled it and rinsed. Now it is completely void of any green algae.

Carl

 

[jbadd99]

huskerreefatl;1056443 wrote: Where you dosing the whole tank to get rid of hair algae? If so, how did it work? If not, then why?

Thanks,
carl

I was dosing to help kill off some dino. That, plus pH boost, plus a blackout seems to have done the trick. I've read similar stories of success for GHA though.

Zoas will close up for a couple hours, and my acros bleached a little, but color is coming back now. I dosed around 30mL for a 130g system twice daily for about 10 days.

 

[huskerreefatl]

jbadd99;1056447 wrote: I was dosing to help kill off some dino. That, plus pH boost, plus a blackout seems to have done the trick. I've read similar stories of success for GHA though.

Zoas will close up for a couple hours, and my acros bleached a little, but color is coming back now. I dosed around 30mL for a 130g system twice daily for about 10 days.

Thanks. Good to hear that it was successful. I was leery about pouring peroxide over the rock but it seems to have worked. I would have to read more about dosing the whole tank though. That scares me a bit.

 

[bulkrate]

5 minute dip in a 50/50 H2O2-to-tank-water mix is my go-to on all incoming zoa/paly frags. Nothing survives it except the stuff you actually want. For more delicate corals (blastos/ricordea) I usually just cut away as much rock as possible before gluing rather than risking it on a dip - the clean-up crew's handled whatever leftovers are they to date.

I don't dose peroxide into the tank itself, though. Several shrimp species (particularly lysmata - "skunk" & "fire" cleaners) are very sensitive to it, plus I have a decent amount of display macroalgae that I'd rather not risk killing off.

 

[huskerreefatl]

I wish that i would have taken a before picture of the rock so that I could show the after. It is pretty impressive. I have read that many folks have dosed the tank, around 1 ml/10 gallons and some higher. In two different articles, they mentioned that their cleaner shrimp died but they were dosing a lot higher than the recommended 1 ml. Also, one person noted that his xenia suffered but again it was higher dosage. They say that they dosed once per day for up to a couple weeks and have had great success with dino and GHA...even cyano in some cases.

I have little patches here and there with GHA. Typically, it is a recessed part of the rock where it has less flow and nutrients must get caught in there. I will have to keep reading on dosing and if I get brave enough, I may try it. It was interesting though that my CUC were all over the rock that I rinsed so they must have been cleaning up the dead stuff. There are a few lengthy forum threads on the topic with mostly success. The ones that had issues just dumped a bunch of H2O2 in the tank without measuring or didn't do the math right for the dosage and caused problems. It does sound like it works better to dose under full lights and it can drop your PH so you have to keep an eye on it.

 

[ralph atl]

Ralph ATL;1056431 wrote: it is perfectly fine to do this outside the tank, please realize that anything it touches it will destroy cells. You want to avoid anything that you want to keep alive.

if you shut off all water flow, you can take a syringe inside the tank and carefully apply to an isolated area inside the tank (for 10 minutes), with a maximum of 10ml per 50 gallons per day.This would be for a treatment of something that either grew back after treatment outside tank, or something that you could't remove in the first place.

it actually stays isolated except directly to the top...it dilutes quick in saltwater...use a syringe to spray on affected area.

 

[huskerreefatl]

Ralph ATL;1056505 wrote: it actually stays isolated except directly to the top...it dilutes quick in saltwater...use a syringe to spray on affected area.

Thanks. I will try that on a small patch that is on a rock that is too large to pull out.

 

[russ-iv]

if you have shrimp they can perish. they are very sensitive.
snails, clams and the like seem to not care much. zoas and duncans will be very sensitive and close up.

a more immediate result would be taking out the rock and dosing outside the DT. you will be waiting a long time imo staying at low doses to the dt.

 

[huskerreefatl]

Here is the rock that I rinsed in peroxide. It used to have little patches of GHA mixed in the zoas but now it is all gone and the coral on the rock look fine. As you can see by the rocks behind it and the back glass, I need to do some more. I am trying to address the source at the same time, looking at lighting, feeding, and phosphates (have the BRS dual carbon/GFO reactors running).
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[redstang]

Russ-IV;1056548 wrote: if you have shrimp they can perish. they are very sensitive.
snails, clams and the like seem to not care much. zoas and duncans will be very sensitive and close up.

a more immediate result would be taking out the rock and dosing outside the DT. you will be waiting a long time imo staying at low doses to the dt.

Glad to see someone else noted this. Cleaner shrimp especially seem to be sensitive. Removing objects, cleansing, rinsing, and replacing seems to still be safe.

I have read of people soaking a cloth and rubbing the inside of the glass to keep them algae free for a while too. Haven't tried it yet as I like my cleaner shrimp.

 

[russ-iv]

RedStang;1056591 wrote: Glad to see someone else noted this. Cleaner shrimp especially seem to be sensitive. Removing objects, cleansing, rinsing, and replacing seems to still be safe.

I have read of people soaking a cloth and rubbing the inside of the glass to keep them algae free for a while too. Haven't tried it yet as I like my cleaner shrimp.

yeah. with my dino outbreak i messed with dosing. tried nuking by hand at a 1ml:1gallon (half a bottle of peroxide) per dose to hooking it up to a doser and slowly dosing over time.

cleaner died first dose.
pistol died first nuke.

bought another cleaner and went the slow dose route. did just as well.

 

[huskerreefatl]

I tried the syringe method to target some of the GHA and ultimately put 5 ml in a 75 gallon tank with a 20 gallon sump so I guess about 60 gallons of actual water so it is very conservative since they say to add 1 ml per 10 gallons. We will see if it works. No living things seemed to be affected, including the cleaner shrimp, so far.