Hydrogen Peroxide In The Reef Tank

joshkirkland83

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I had a green hair algae problem twice and I treated with peroxide heavily with no problems. Every morning I squeezed 3% peroxide heavily all over the surface of the aquarium. Every 3 days I did a 20% water change to suck out the waste from algae. I did this for 2 weeks and my tank was clear. All my live stock survived which was: Green star polyps, Kenya tree, neon leather, torch, caps, mushrooms, sand sift, coral banded shrimp, Halloween urchin, bengai cardinal, snails for days, sand goby, emerald crabs, hermit crabs, snow eel, dwarf lion fish, antheis, blue damsle, yellow eye tang, file fish, blenny, maroon clown, Nemo clown, Condy anemone, and a Green carpet anemone. The corals and anemones do react to peroxide. The close for like 15 minutes when doses and then they open as if nothing happened. I would recommend killing green hair algae with peroxide, but I'm no expert, and I could have just got lucky. Many people have been successful with peroxide. 50 gallon tank, heavy flow, 200lbs liverock, bio filter.
You have all that livestock in a 50g tank?
 

Irish_clover

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I have developed an algae problem due to the fact that I was having a lighting issue. Well now that I have the lighting issue where I think it needs to be I want to get rid of the algae that developed during my lighting learning experience. I've heard very good things about dosing with H2O2.

My question is will the proper dosing harm my two beautiful birdsnest corals or either of my two anemones? I also have a couple chalices, mushrooms, zoas, torch corals, hammer corals, ploys, and a Duncan. Should the H2O2 be safe for these? Thanks in advance. Allen
 

brandon429

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In the large peroxide threads it is shown that no anemones have been lost but they get mad and close up when it's dosed many times. They dislike it

Birds nest corals are shown tolerant in the threads to a dose of one mil per ten gallons volume. Some can take more, thats just a working safe dose where many targets happen to also comply. All the other corals listed are tolerant of the dose.

Those big threads also show that if you truly want the algae gone and are willing to do work, don't dump peroxide into the water. That mode is for avoiding work

To win, take out one bad test rock from up top that was easy to remove, even if it has corals on it we are working outside the tank. In the air, use a steak knife to score off the algae, all of it, delicately working around the base of the corals like a dentist. Damage some of the attachment surfaces, scrape hard. Make the test rock free of algae this way and be rinsing it off well using saltwater in the sink. When the test rock is 100% free of algae, go back over the cleaned areas with peroxide to burn off leftovers, let it soak a few mins in the air. Rinse and put rock back in tank and you'll see how well the algae stays gone if the lighting is blue and not too white to regrow it.

Dosing the tank stresses everything but we know the tolerable amounts via repetition from the big dosing threads. Working like a doctor outside the tank is immediate algae compliance, no peroxide touching nontargets, and it's the ideal method in 2017 for peroxide dosing a tank. Post pics if you can lets see details
 

Lasse

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Hi

First time I saw Hydrogen Peroxide connected to aquaria was in the earlier 80: thies. At a large aquarium exhibition a magical thing named söchting oxydator was displayed. We laugh – because how could a ceramic pot and some chemicals oxygenate an aquarium – and also fight bacteria, parasites and algae. But I was wrong – the thing actually works. And it is one of the most genius solution of dosing I ever has seen. In a plastic container - with a tiny hole in the bottom – peroxide is stored. In the container – there is a small piece/pieces of a ceramic that catalyst the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide to oxygen atoms and water. The oxygen atoms directly form oxygen gas that rise to the top of the plastic container. The gas expand and slowly press hydrogen peroxide through the tinny hole. The plastic container is placed in a pot of the same ceramic as the catalyst. The peroxide rise between the plastic container and the ceramic pot and will be breakdown to hydrogen atoms and water. Some atoms for the gas O2 some will directly attack organic matter and oxidize this directly. To hinder the plastic container to rise when it contain more and more oxygen gas – a weight of the same ceramic is placed at the top (some of the models)

In my new aquaria – see my build thread - I use this method instead of ozone or active carbon in order to get rid of the organic yellow tint you easily get in a saltwater aquaria. It´s also an oxygen reserve if I get a power cut for a prolonged period. Normally I have it in my sump in an area with the flow of 2 500 litres/hour. At a power cut – I move it to a display tank. The dosing rate depends on how many pieces of ceramic I use in the plastic container. For the moment I dose around 175 ml 6 % non-stabilized H2O2 a month for 350 l of water. My aquaria is rather algae free (but I do not think the peroxide is the whole truth for this – there is a large clean-up crew also) and the water is crystal clear.

Sincerely Lasse
 

brandon429

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fully agreed, they're amazing in that oxydators have no known sensitives
not a single loss ive ever heard can be attributed to an od. the way they meter out the dose is acceptable to all, yet its strong enough for the oxidation to force out many species like cyano and spirulina and microalgae... possibly even early stage dinos before full infestation and algae bits floating about. photosynthetic organisms are trying to expel oxygen as both an irritant and a poison from a typical lighted day's running...hitting them again with doses of oxygen in my guess likely backs up free radical expulsion and combined with the bright lighting we ran in treated tanks it seems like a fair working mechanism to me for peroxide dosed straight or by meter

photosynthetic organisms showed the most impact in our threads, not the pods. certainly not any fish, we don't even have any fish listed as sensitives the dosing gamut was covered a few years across forums and TroyLee has a nice one here at R2R as well

straight peroxide kills fireworms like mad which is a cycling risk in some tanks depending on populations, and id estimate 80% of any tanks that have lysmata cleaners using any form of direct peroxide will have losses. cleaner shrimp are somehow the weakest organism we found among all the anecdotes collected. the oxydator will kill none of these and they're best used not as cleanup tools but as preventatives. install an OD before any invasions come not in reaction is my best offer.

something about the light driven chain + peroxide zaps a huge portion of oxygen producers in a given system

straight peroxide dosing threads show no widespread loss to the oxygen consumers like we do in plant systems, that was always a neat alignment that came about no matter which forum the new threads would appear on

on youtube especially in German videos the OD are used in sensitive bee shrimp tanks freshwater, crystal reds are wimps for sure and its amazing they crawl all over the od and thrive in a clean oligotrophic environment. it would also be undoubted that sludge-digesting aerobic bacteria will be boosted by oxygen injection below a toxicity threshold/I cannot think of one bad aspect of the od other than cost and space when nano keepers are considering. we deal with bigger skimmers, get a sump is a possibility.
 
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najer

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Hi

First time I saw Hydrogen Peroxide connected to aquaria was in the earlier 80: thies. At a large aquarium exhibition a magical thing named söchting oxydator was displayed. We laugh – because how could a ceramic pot and some chemicals oxygenate an aquarium – and also fight bacteria, parasites and algae. But I was wrong – the thing actually works. And it is one of the most genius solution of dosing I ever has seen. In a plastic container - with a tiny hole in the bottom – peroxide is stored. In the container – there is a small piece/pieces of a ceramic that catalyst the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide to oxygen atoms and water. The oxygen atoms directly form oxygen gas that rise to the top of the plastic container. The gas expand and slowly press hydrogen peroxide through the tinny hole. The plastic container is placed in a pot of the same ceramic as the catalyst. The peroxide rise between the plastic container and the ceramic pot and will be breakdown to hydrogen atoms and water. Some atoms for the gas O2 some will directly attack organic matter and oxidize this directly. To hinder the plastic container to rise when it contain more and more oxygen gas – a weight of the same ceramic is placed at the top (some of the models)

In my new aquaria – see my build thread - I use this method instead of ozone or active carbon in order to get rid of the organic yellow tint you easily get in a saltwater aquaria. It´s also an oxygen reserve if I get a power cut for a prolonged period. Normally I have it in my sump in an area with the flow of 2 500 litres/hour. At a power cut – I move it to a display tank. The dosing rate depends on how many pieces of ceramic I use in the plastic container. For the moment I dose around 175 ml 6 % non-stabilized H2O2 a month for 350 l of water. My aquaria is rather algae free (but I do not think the peroxide is the whole truth for this – there is a large clean-up crew also) and the water is crystal clear.

Sincerely Lasse

fully agreed, they're amazing in that oxydators have no known sensitives
not a single loss ive ever heard can be attributed to an od. the way they meter out the dose is acceptable to all, yet its strong enough for the oxidation to force out many species like cyano and spirulina and microalgae... possibly even early stage dinos before full infestation and algae bits floating about. photosynthetic organisms are trying to expel oxygen as both an irritant and a poison from a typical lighted day's running...hitting them again with doses of oxygen in my guess likely backs up free radical expulsion and combined with the bright lighting we ran in treated tanks it seems like a fair working mechanism to me for peroxide dosed straight or by meter

photosynthetic organisms showed the most impact in our threads, not the pods. certainly not any fish, we don't even have any fish listed as sensitives the dosing gamut was covered a few years across forums and TroyLee has a nice one here at R2R as well

straight peroxide kills fireworms like mad which is a cycling risk in some tanks depending on populations, and id estimate 80% of any tanks that have lysmata cleaners using any form of direct peroxide will have losses. cleaner shrimp are somehow the weakest organism we found among all the anecdotes collected. the oxydator will kill none of these and they're best used not as cleanup tools but as preventatives. install an OD before any invasions come not in reaction is my best offer.


amazing detail imo, something about the light driven chain + peroxide and thereby oxygen is at work. dosing threads show not much loss to the oxygen consumer group

on youtube especially in German videos the OD are used in sensitive bee shrimp tanks freshwater, crystal reds are wimps for sure and its amazing they crawl all over the od and thrive in a clean oligotrophic environment. it would also be undoubted that digestive aerobic bacteria will be boosted by oxygen injection below a toxicity threshold/I cannot think of one bad aspect of the od other than cost and space when nano keepers are considering. we deal with bigger skimmers, get a sump is a possibility.

I would never run a tank without at least one now, 2 great posts. :)
 

Oldreefer44

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+1 Similar to Devon, struggled with hair algae for months. Finally resorted to dosing H2O2. Took about 3 weeks to eliminate with no sign of it returning after stopping the dosing. Lost no livestock and have gone a couple months with no sign of it returning. In fact only have to scrape the glass every 10 days or so.
 

Lasse

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I have one Lysmata amboinensis, one Stenopus hispidus, one Rhynchocinetes durbanensis and 3 Lysmata wurdemanni and at least 5 species of hermit crabs in my Aquarium - some of the has been in there for 10 month - no problems with the oxydator.

the oxydator will kill none of these and they're best used not as cleanup tools but as preventatives. install an OD before any invasions come not in reaction is my best offer.

I agree


Edit - I forgott two Lysmata debelius

Sincerely Lasse
 
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brandon429

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We have had people dosing alongside those with no issues. I haven’t seen any mechanism where peroxide caused any loss or measurable change in bacteria including carbon dosing schemes. Peroxide either killed the target or it didn’t, no collateral harm for bac.

When dealing with aerobic bacteria, using peroxide in the system is likely a boost not a harm

searchable online pages show extensive testing yielding zero impact to bacteria. I don't even know of any outliers in our p threads. How often does that happen in data sets... Regarding suspended bacteria boosted by carbon, we could do some quick testing.

In a week we'd have nitrate measures all inputs kept current that would tell.
 
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Lasse

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You probably should not use GFO or biopellets reactor directly downstream to an oxydator or dosing point of peroxide. But upstream works well.

Sincerely Lasse
 

brandon429

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I went back and edited in why I thought I wouldn't matter, but there is a difference in biofilm coated rugged surface testing (no microbial loss per tests) and suspended heterotrophs brought on by carbon dosing, awaiting export. I predict no impact due to dilution in tank.

Peroxide doesn't follow universal assumption on orp impacts either that stuff is such a fun rulebreaker


YouTube has very neat German oxydator pages and videos showing their use in bee shrimp setups and amazing variation of freshwater applications too it's a neat invention for sure. It's much more tame than direct dosing, someone test
 
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Midrats

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@Lasse I just deployed my new Oxydator D in my sump. I filled it with 8% H2O2 seated the brown cap into the ceramic bell an turned it until it locked into place . There's bubbles rising into the beaker through the tiny hole. I assume that is just the trapped air under the cap? The level of peroxide has dropped pretty quickly as the air displaces it . should I be concerned? My corals are closing a little because there's lots of bubbles.
 
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Midrats

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My corals definitely are looking unhappy, I'm pulling it out.
 

BZOFIQ

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You might want to add that 1ml per 10 gal is with the 3% solution available at drug store and general stores like walmart. We sure don't want anyone nuking their tanks by dosing or dipping with the 35% solution in the photo

wrong thread.
 

jpbeen

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I tried hydrogen peroxide to clean my filter socks based on a post I read here and while it cleaned them, I also lost a fox faced rabbit fish the next day. Not sure if it was related since everyone else was fine.
I have been using 35% hydrogen peroxide to clean my filter socks for months and my Fox face rabbit and other fish never had an issue.
 

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