you ever heard about hydrogen peroxide dosing? (1 Viewer)

[gabe_j]

alright, so all this talk of hydrogen peroxide clearing up gha (on a different forum) has got me trying something drastic. as mentioned in a prior thread everyone always say thing like oh you got gha? it must be a water quality issue. but despite doing everything within my power aside from a full break down and restart. it wouldn't go away my nitrates are down to literally 0 i reduced the bioload by 4 fish. so i'm sure that helped some but the gha survives.

well 3 days ago i took the plunge and dosed 10ml for a 40 breeder i wasn't so concerned with the ml per liter part as i knew i was under the 1ml per gallon which i was comfortable dosing tank with out any ill effects. i'
m not fully ruling out upping the dosage but to start i'll take my time and ease into it nice and slow. i' keeping 10-20 gallons of sw premixed at all times incase sh!t hits the fan and i need to swap out 50% of my water.

hope this goes as well as i've seen other do. although the results of others haven't been as documented i'm giving it a go.

current stats
mg 1350
dkh 9
ph 8.2
cal 480
po4 <.25 closer to 0 but i dont' have a hanna meter... anyone in houston?
no3 0

so here's the pics starting at day 2 till now since i forgot to take any before that.
yesterday (day 2)

here's one of the reaction from the nem within 20 seconds of dosing it seems to be fine after a few hours but its weird how fast it reacts to the h2o2..

my acan corner

the zoa mushroom rock

my tabling acro note the great gha...sorry for the night shots its when i remembered to bust the camera out.

stag and favia totally unaffected.

that's is for now..
-gabe

 

[RocketSurgeon]

I'll follow along on this one...

 

[gabe_j]

cool, thanks wish me luck thats a $5000 gamble i'm taking. oh sh!t... oh well its too late to go back now lol.

 

[steveb]

Hey Gabe can you link the article so we can review?

 

[DustinB]

Peroxide is generally only recommended as a last ditch effort for cyano from what I've seen. Very bad things can happen in a flash.

Are you running any GFO? I've put rock into my tanks covered in HA and had it all disappear within a few days running GFO.

 

[gabe_j]

it really isn't an article since its a fairly nontypical approch. but theres a disscussion going on at nano-reef and there have been promising results.

as far as cyano goes i didn't really have any issues with it, its just that gha. i've considered running gfo but i don't what to add in more stuff to have to maintain equipment wise. i was vodka dosing and i was still getting gha growth so i know there isn't really alot of nutrient rich water it had to be getting fed by the higher bioload which has been cut. but this stuff wont die so i'm at witts end and figured i've got enough water to change a significant part of my volume at once if needed.

i've only really read about extreme reactions when the dose is raised too fast pushing 3-5ml p/g seems the be considered too high by the folks i've spoken to that are running h2o2 i'm at .285ml p/g but if all goes to hell in a hand basket i've got back up tanks i can set up in under an hour lol.

 

[DustinB]

The problem is an excess of phosphate, I'd put money on it that GFO will solve your problem with issue.

Vodka(Carbon) dosing is a proven way to reduce nutrients, however, it is really limited in what it can do alone. In order for nutrients to be eaten by bacteria they need 2 things. A nitrogen source, and phosphorus source, and a carbon source. The problem with carbon dosing is that that eventually your nitrogen source(nitrate) is depleted and the cycle can no longer continue at any effective rate. IIRC, nitrogen is consumed in this process at a 16 to 1 ratio to phosphorus. This you are left with a phosphate source for the algae etc... to survive on.

Not trying to talk you out of your plan, but there are standard methods of easily getting rid of algae without dosing something like peroxide.

 

[gabe_j]

hmm now you got me thinking. i just don't know how well a reactor half full of carbon would do with some gfo mixed in couldn't i just mix it with my carbon? or does it have to tumble?

 

[DustinB]

What reactor is it? I use a BRS single reactor with a divider sponge. The sponge holds the carbon at the top and the GFO is allowed to slightly tumble at the bottom. I use a valve to adjust the flow.

 

[gabe_j]

yea that's what I got too. I may need to try that how much gfo are you supposed to use per gallon?

 

[steveb]

What reactor is it? I use a BRS single reactor with a divider sponge. The sponge holds the carbon at the top and the GFO is allowed to slightly tumble at the bottom. I use a valve to adjust the flow.

I use a TLF with rox 0.8 on the bottom, mesh divider, high capacity gfo then sponge. I crank the flow enough to allow the gfo to tumble a little. I also run bio pellets in another reactor about 3/4 full. I change the gfo/carbon out once a month. Bio load = 3 anthias, melanruse wrasse, 2 firefish, maroon clown, 4 shrimp and a boat load of lps that I feed. I read 0 phosphate, no algae and nitrates are usually about 5. What also helped me a lot where to large bull dozer turbo snails - responsible for constantly knocking frags over or loose.

The reason I was asking about the hydrogen peroxide is that i have read about being used (dilluted) as a prophylactic dip or in emergencies when tank o2 is low due to power outage.

 

[steveb]

oh and for full disclosure I also change out 10 gallons of water a week and shoot for 10-11 dKH alkalinity.


Is this thread looking goof to anyone else??? Like being quoted or something all the text way over on right side.

 

[gabe_j]

interesting. yeah its getting all stupid on me too.

 

[Ostentum]

Here is my 2 cents, I have always delt with gha, Phosphates are undetectible. I have done alot of research on this topic. What I believe is the roots of the algae are always on the live rock unless you get some type of removal system, like a seahare. The goal then after you get the roots taken care of is to promote coraline algae growth over that bare patch of live rock. About every 3 months I get a small bloom of hair algae where the coraline didnt grow over the places fast enough. I believe this is caused by phosphates inbedded in the live rock leaching into the tank, hince the growth from the rock and undetectible amounts in the water column.

 

[gabe_j]

hmm thats also something i started thinking was that the rock was actually holding some po4 and silicates that was causing the blooms. i really don't want to have to take my mapp gas torch to the rocks... but i'll do what has to be done. lol

 

[RocketSurgeon]

I put a couple rocks with hair algea in my tank the other day. Couple days later, hair algae was completely gone. I'm thinking my fish were hungry.

 

[DustinB]

If you have hair algae you have phosphate, no matter what it reads. If it reads 0 then the algae is consuming from the water column as fast as it's released. Phosphate can be bound in the rocks and leach into the water column as stated. Running GFO has been proven to remedy this problem as well, though it may take some time if the rock is loaded with it.

 

[gabe_j]

cool well ill need to pick up a bit. but in the mean while I did take my problem rock and use about 2 gallons of tank water, 1/2 cup of peroxide straight onto the bad spots and then soaking it in the mix for a few mins. I scrubbed off most all of it with a tooth brush. on a side note bristle worms hate peroxide like the devil. lol

that was yesterday, and by today the few strands that were left are white and desolving so it does work at killing algae

 

[AquaNerd]

get a hanna checker for phosphate. titration test kits have nowhere near the resolution needed to read the phosphates that fuel our algae.

 

[gabe_j]

i should, shouldn't i. i will if this peroxcide rock dipping plan fails.