Bleach Dosing?

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I will say that in the world of undergraduate bio and chem labs, it's often suggested that one 'drop' from an eye dropper of an aqueous (water based) solution is approximately 1 mL.
A "drop" is usually considered to be between 0.03 and 0.05 ml.
I am not expert, but I count drops every morning when I dose my tank, and this pans out ime. I'd say 0.04 to 0.05 ml per drop, depending on pipette. I use 0.05 to be conservative.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...
 
IMO- People who put bleach in their tanks, must have dropped something that made them thing the idea was a good one?

Tripping The Simpsons GIF
 
A "drop" is usually considered to be between 0.03 and 0.05 ml.
I am not expert, but I count drops every morning when I dose my tank, and this pans out ime. I'd say 0.04 to 0.05 ml per drop, depending on pipette. I use 0.05 to be conservative.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...
When I studied bio and chem in college, we would consider one drop from a regular eye dropper to equal approximately 1 mL. Maybe different droppers would yield different amounts? I guess that would be important to know if one wants to try dosing bleach 🙃
 
Functionally, do you think there is a meaningful difference between dosing ozone, hydrogen peroxide, and bleach? They are all oxidizers, just delivered through different methods.

Ozone has always been attractive to me because it produces crystal-clear, odor-free water and can eliminate stubborn slimes from the sand. I have never measured it, but it also seems like the glass does not need to be cleaned nearly as often. Most of these benefits can often be achieved by running ozone for only an hour or two in the middle of the night.

The downside is that if ozone is destroying odors, color pigments, slimes, and possibly algae, it seems reasonable to assume it is also having some effect on the fish and corals.

Elliot from Marine Collectors was a big fan of ozone until he noticed that small aggression-related nips on fins healed more slowly. They still healed, just not as quickly, which suggested the ozone was affecting the fish. He was also only running it for a few hours each night.

I have often wondered whether hydrogen peroxide might be a better oxidation solution. With ozone, it is nearly impossible to know or precisely control the actual dose reaching the aquarium. That means I never really know whether I am using too much and the uncontrolled dose is material risk to the animals. Hydrogen peroxide, on the other hand, is much easier to dose accurately and consistently. There might be a dose where you get the most benefits with the least risk.

In the end, I always reach the same conclusion: the unknowns make the juice not worth the squeeze. I can achieve most of the same benefits with activated carbon, a healthy biome, and good maintenance practices.

Yes, there are functional differences.

1. Hydrogen peroxide can act as a reducing agent, and is known to reduce copper (cu++) ions in seawater. The other two do not. This highlights one type of difference: what exactly is oxidized.

2. Ozone treatments are often contained and passed over GAC. Bleach could be too, but is it? It is not hard to pass ozone treated water over GAC (I always did) and remove all of the oxidizing species.

3. Hydrogen peroxide is not a very strong oxidant and may not oxidize as many types of organics.
 
not to derail the thread but isn’t the standard pharmaceutical measurement actually 20 drops per mL for water (or 0.05mL per drop)? I have some 2mL syringes and a 1mL autopipette and it seems like 1mL is a lot more than about any “1 drop” i’ve ever seen…
I guess I'm not sure. I always remembered them telling us a drop from a standard eye dropper was about 1 mL, but it was some years ago, so maybe I'm not remembering correctly 🤪

I mean, I was wrong once before back around 1986, I supposed it could have happened a second time 🤣🙃😂
 
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