Hydrogen Peroxide, the ultimate algae killer

[Rheg915]

I love aquariums but algae is the bane of my existence. I have a RSM 130 with extensive mods and to be honest I almost gave up the hobby. No matter what I did I could never get the algae to die. I tried water changes, live stock route (2 lettuce slugs, one is now huge, bali monster (sea hare), crabs of all kinds), and tons of purigen, chemipure and upgrading to a tunze skimmer. In the end what worked best for me was when I hydrogen peroxide. I dipped the life rock and zoanthid for five min. The zoo came out great and the live rocked I have dipped is crystal clean. I have not tried it on other LPS (xenia, mushroms, ricordias), so am a little worried about that.

I did water tests and I really could never figure out what was wrong, sometimes the phosphates were a little high, like .2 but not often. I think though it really helps to give the critters a change to catch up. Also kills every live nuisance organisms. I could not believe the flat worms I had or even the bristle stats. Also kills those annoying weird shaped artesma. Give it a try, about 4 to one tank water to peroxide. Works great.

 

[BigAl07]

Yes it will "Nuke" rock, sand and frag plugs but anyone trying this needs to understand more about it.

• What ratio of H2o2 to H2O did you use? ( see you say about 4/1)
  
• What type of algae did you have? (some say it doesn't tough GHA)
  
• What concentration of H2O2 did you use? (easiest to find is 3%)
  
• Was this a single 5min dip?
  
• Did you completely submerge the coral into the dip?
  
• Did you do any type of rinse after the dip?
  
• What other "specifics" did you do and how long ago was it?

If anyone is going to try this do understand you can NUKE your tank and also understand that it's a non-selective process in that it will kill more than just nuisance algae ( already noted flatworms, stars etc) so you have the potential to wipe our your natural biological filtration here.

Rheg915 I'm not doubting you or hounding you it's just that this process has a high degree of risk involved so anyone attempting it needs to know what they are doing and follow a game plan.

 

[Mischko]

Should be: Hydrogen Peroxide, the ultimate killer. Good luck with that stuff. You are aware, as mentioned, that will kill everything on life rocks hence the algae problem is gone. I have my serious doubts that this will work in the long run and won't hurt your frags dipping it into it. Hydrogen Peroxide is used to bleach dead life rocks, my dad uses it to bleach trophies of deer and such and that in a low concentration! Sorry, neither would I even think to try it nor would I recomment anybody to try it at all. Not to mention the risk you put on yourself handling with Hydrogen Peroxide. Will give just a hole on your hand, but a sparkle in your eyes? Enjoy!

 

[BigAl07]

It will "work" especially for "dipping". I've not published my results yet because I'm still in the "Test & Document" stage but it does a great job on bryopsis when dipped. It's just so easy to over dose a tank or to kill the frag completely I haven't told hardly anyone about it yet. I've taken notes and lots of pictures and even some video.

 

[Dweezil]

Mischko ~ Are you sure your thinking of the same stuff? Over here they sell Hydrogen Peroxide on the shelf at the drug stores. It's used to pour over wounds and such to draw infection out. At times we are even told by doctors to "garggle" with it if you have a tooth infection. So the stuff over here will not leave a hole in your hand.
That's not to say that I think it's safe for corals....or that I would use it for that application. I just wasn't sure you were thinking of the same stuff.

 

[Reefmack]

+1 to Tammy's comment. The strength found in pharmacies is much weaker than industrial strength - typically 3% at the pharmacy.

Hydrogen Peroxide: practical, environmentally friendly & anti-bacterial

The high strength stuff is another story and can be dangerous.

 

[Mischko]

Ohhhh, ok, THAT stuff you meant! Sorry, I was thinking of the hard stuff here used for bleaching and I was already wondering that a coral survived it ;-)

 

[BigAl07]

Mischko were you possibly talking about:

Hydrochloric acid (aka Muriatic Acid)

Concentrated hydrochloric acid (fuming hydrochloric acid) forms acidic mists. Both the mist and the solution have a corrosive effect on human tissue, with the potential to damage respiratory organs, eyes, skin, and intestines.

Now that stuff is brutal. Yes it "can" be used to clean equipment (also used to ETCH concrete if that tells you anything) it should be reserved as a last resort when other cleaners wont get it. Do NOT eve think about putting any living tissue into this compound or it wont be living long

 

[catran]

Lol, talk about a clean tank! Yeah, that would bleach everything in it's path!


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[artpics]

as a kid we would bleach our jeans in England.

 

[PIMPALA]

would be easier and cheaper to just boil the rock in water. or sit it outside in the sun. lol

 

[pocketreef]

Hi there,

<< I did water tests and I really could never figure out what was wrong >> I would test water again with other tests, test Top-Up water with a TDS meter. And keep testing more before any drastic move. If TDS, nitrates and phosphates 0 and you keep having algae see if tubes are aging. Please provide a full test result with all major parameters. Challenge your instruments! Recalibrate refractometer, etc.

If nothing works, I'd restart with new substract and new rocks. Leave the animals for sometime with a colleague.

hth

 

[Mischko]

Get reference solutions and test with the reference. You will be surprised that the biggest error in testing water values is you yourself! If you use tests with color indication make sure you use the same light source/lamp for it. If you read something in the manual like, compare chart with water sample in day light, well good luck, then some people are able to do water tests like 2-3 times a year!
Make sure you use tests of well known and reliable companies, make sure the test has a 'date of expiry' on it. Some tests use Vitamine C and that can disolve over time. Has to be pure white! If you use tests only random over time, and I ain't joking here now, have the manual next to you and go step by step. How many times I did forget to add this and that in a test!
Most of the times it is not that important to have the exact result in a test, a test can even display faulty results, it is way more important the test is able to show you a significantly change in water values so you can react in time! E. g. your Nitrate test kit shows you 10 mg/l over weeks (with a pro kit it might be for real 25 mg/l), and one day you get 20 mg/l then you know something is going maybe wrong in your tank. Your results may actually not be the values you would get sending in a water probe to pro lab doing water analysis, but as long as the test kit can pick up changes in values, then you can react. Hope that gibber of mine made somehow sense for you.