Dosing Hydrogen Peroxide?

MeatCake

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Anyone out there dose 3% hydrogen peroxide to keep nuisance algae at bay?

I’m still trying to dial in my bio-pellet reactor and my tank has an outbreak of Cyanobacteria.

I thought about using Dr. Tim’s Refresh, but then I remember reading somewhere about dosing peroxide to fight nuisance algae.

Anyone out there with advice?
 

Subsea

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Yes, I dosed 3% peroxide at 1 ml per 10G of water. Protocol was to go 10 days. At day 5, I discontinued due to eradication of pods in the system.

I still use peroide in a 10 minute dip at 10%.

For in tank treatment of Cyanobacteria, consider chemiclean.
 
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MeatCake

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I accidentally dosed 1ml per 1 gallon last night…

Everything seemed Ok this morning.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Anyone out there dose 3% hydrogen peroxide to keep nuisance algae at bay?

I’m still trying to dial in my bio-pellet reactor and my tank has an outbreak of Cyanobacteria.

I thought about using Dr. Tim’s Refresh, but then I remember reading somewhere about dosing peroxide to fight nuisance algae.

Anyone out there with advice?

Don’t dose it without using test strips to measure the remaining active dose!

 

Subsea

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I accidentally dosed 1ml per 1 gallon last night…

Everything seemed Ok this morning.
How about a full tank shot with white light. Also, a better description of your biofiltration and livestock in the tank. How long has tank been set up? Is your goal to operate an ultra low nutrient system with the bio pellets?

Every system has a different BOD (BIOLOGICAL OXYGEN DEMAND). That is the reason for test strips.
 
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MeatCake

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I’m at work but I’ll try to get a pic before I tuck in for the night.

I’m using bio-pellets because I stopped using chaeto to manage my NO3 and PO4. My tank is in the family living room and every time I pulled chaeto out it made a huge mess and my wife would give me the Manson lamps.

I purchased a pellet reactor and started running TM Bio-Pellets.

I pulled the chaeto out before my bio-pellets started to work, which is the reason for the Cyanobacteria outbreak.
 

Subsea

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Best keep your soulmate happy (no Manson lamps, too funny) and not mess up the living room.

I ran macro algae & mud refugium for 20 years and 5 years ago switched to cryptic refugium by adding live rock and turning out the lights. Now, with a mature biofilter, I add ammonia to keep up with system nitrogen demand. I think phosphate comes in with the air.

PS; After 55 years in the hobby, I think cyanobacteria may well come in with air.
If you value your micro fauna & fana do not dose peroxide in main display. When I use peroxide in display tank, I do spot application with tooth brush or needle.

Not sure how that much peroxide would effect bacteria biodiversity.
 
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MeatCake

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I purchased three of the red “Pom Pom”s and restarted my fuge with them. They look much more easy to harvest back if they get too big plus I could sell my extra to my LFS.

They survived my peroxide mistake last night. Thankfully.

I like the idea of carbon dosing with bio-pellets and having my fuge to manage nutrients because I’m trying to make sure my corals always have enough NO3 and PO4. My tank is a 40 breeder with a Fiji 20 sump.
 

Subsea

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I purchased three of the red “Pom Pom”s and restarted my fuge with them. They look much more easy to harvest back if they get too big plus I could sell my extra to my LFS.

They survived my peroxide mistake last night. Thankfully.

I like the idea of carbon dosing with bio-pellets and having my fuge to manage nutrients because I’m trying to make sure my corals always have enough NO3 and PO4. My tank is a 40 breeder with a Fiji 20 sump.
I see carbon dosing as a method to feed bacteria that are removed with a protein skimmer and because those bacteria absorb nutrients, the skimmate removes organics that remove nutrients.

Refugiums are a refuge from predators. Macro algae refugiums can be both a nutrient export and a nutrient recycling process, depending on what you do with what you prune. Your Pom Pom is not likely fish food as Gracilaria Hayi is slightly calcified, however it makes an excellant ornamental in a display tank and would be a higher cash crop than chatomorphy. Plus G Hayi will outgrow chaeto and doesn’t require turning.
 
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MeatCake

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I purchased three of the red “Pom Pom”s and restarted my fuge with them. They look much more easy to harvest back if they get too big plus I could sell my extra to my LFS.

They survived my peroxide mistake last night. Thankfully.

I like the idea of carbon dosing with bio-pellets and having my fuge to manage nutrients because I’m trying to make sure my corals always have enough NO3 and PO4. My tank is a 40 breeder with a Fiji 20 sump.
I see carbon dosing as a method to feed bacteria that are removed with a protein skimmer and because those bacteria absorb nutrients, the skimmate removes organics that remove nutrients.

Refugiums are a refuge from predators. Macro algae refugiums can be both a nutrient export and a nutrient recycling process, depending on what you do with what you prune. Your Pom Pom is not likely fish food as Gracilaria Hayi is slightly calcified, however it makes an excellant ornamental in a display tank and would be a higher cash crop than chatomorphy. Plus G Hayi will outgrow chaeto and doesn’t require turning.
Thank you so much for the council and advice. My tank was doing so awesome until 2 months ago. All my montipora’s died within a few days weeks and no amount of water changes or testing could save them.

I’m waiting for the results of my first ICP test to hopefully give me a clue at what’s going wrong.

One of the reasons I pulled my chaeto out initially is I thought maybe it stripped out my trace elements. I tried dosage trace elements (Seachem). Nothing helps.

The only thing that is thriving in my tank now is a toadstool mushroom, Devils Hand and a boatload of green star polyp.
 

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Don’t dose it without using test strips to measure the remaining active dose!

I don't understand this idea of dosing hydrogen peroxide into a reef tank. I personally believe this is more of a freshwater thing, and even then I don't get it 🤪

Is there some dose that you'd suggest that may actually be effective for any reason in a reef tank, not just algae control? And in a DT specifically, not a bare QT tank?

To me, adding something like 1 mL of 3% H2O2 to 10 gallons of water (which is often what I see suggested) wouldn't do much at all. That single drop of peroxide will immediately oxidize anything organic in the water, and in my mind the peroxide would be almost totally exhausted before it even reached any algae.

Further, if the dose of peroxide remained effective in the tank for any length of time, it would certainly affect all microbes, including beneficial organisms, not just the pest organism we hope it works on.

Jay, I'd be interested to hear more on your take of using hydrogen peroxide in a DT, and I'd be interested to know what @Randy Holmes-Farley thinks too. Maybe I'm missing something, wouldn't be the first time 🤪

Thank you for your help!
 

Jay Hemdal

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I don't understand this idea of dosing hydrogen peroxide into a reef tank. I personally believe this is more of a freshwater thing, and even then I don't get it 🤪

Is there some dose that you'd suggest that may actually be effective for any reason in a reef tank, not just algae control? And in a DT specifically, not a bare QT tank?

To me, adding something like 1 mL of 3% H2O2 to 10 gallons of water (which is often what I see suggested) wouldn't do much at all. That single drop of peroxide will immediately oxidize anything organic in the water, and in my mind the peroxide would be almost totally exhausted before it even reached any algae.

Further, if the dose of peroxide remained effective in the tank for any length of time, it would certainly affect all microbes, including beneficial organisms, not just the pest organism we hope it works on.

Jay, I'd be interested to hear more on your take of using hydrogen peroxide in a DT, and I'd be interested to know what @Randy Holmes-Farley thinks too. Maybe I'm missing something, wouldn't be the first time 🤪

Thank you for your help!

I ran some dosing tests in my office tank that was having a bryopsis problem. Even with using test strips, I killed off all of the shrimp before the algae was affected. I gave it up as a bad deal. Not a definitive test of course, but I decided that wasn’t a process that was going to work for me.
 

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