Dosing with Peroxide for Marine Velvet

[Hitman]

The peroxide you find at Walmart isn't going to work. From what I remember, the dosages covered in fish hatchery and farms, is based on much higher concentrations. Also, peroxide you buy at the stores have additives in them to keep the peroxide from breaking down. There is no way to know what these additives are or their effect on fish.
It's been years since I read the papers on this, but I'm pretty sure I have that right.

Per the pharmacy the gallon I got it 3% peroxide and distilled water.

 

[Hitman]

@HotRocks I think I’m going to be the guinea pig.
800 gallons total water volume between the 600 and 240 tanks tied into the same 100 gallon sump.

Going to start dosing 80ml at 0730 and 1930 with a spare dosing head
Coral stock list.
Euphyllia, a couple leathers, 4 BlackWidow nems, 2 Mini Max nems, 2 rock flower nems, literally hundreds of mushrooms, a softball size colony of Pink Gonis, golf ball size Blasto Merleti, 12 heads Duncan Coral, random Zoa’s and Polys.

Fish stock list
9”Vlamingii Tang ( 10” found dead this morning covered in white silk, I was able to catch the one still alive and have him in my 40 hospital tank now with CP he is not happy as he can not move much, plan to go get a 75 at petco before the sale is over ) Yellow Belly Puffer ( died Thursday day ) 9” Emperor Angle ( first one found dead Thursday morning ) 8” Panther Grouper, 7” Marine Betta, 8” Salifin Tang, 4” Purple Tang, Flame Angel, Yellow Corris Wrasse, Huma Huma Trigger, Falco Hawk, 2 Hybrid Cinnamon Clowns about 3-4”, 2 Black and White Clowns about 2-3, 2 Naked Clowns about 2”

Inverts
50 Astraea snails
30 Troucus snail
20 Blue leg hermits
100 Florida Certh Snails

 

[Hitman]

Ok first dose of 80ml was done 40 minutes ago. 1 Hammer head and 1 torch head seem a bit unhappy but everything else looks good. PH jumped 0.01 within 5 minutes of dosing.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

Oh one more thing to keep in mind. Peroxide isn't "reef safe." It's more like reef with extreme caution. Marine velvet is a dinoflagellate and Zooxanthellae are dinoflagellates. You dose wrong, and your coral could very well blow all their zooxanthellae and die.

 

[Hitman]

Oh one more thing to keep in mind. Peroxide isn't "reef safe." It's more like reef with extreme caution. Marine velvet is a dinoflagellate and Zooxanthellae are dinoflagellates. You dose wrong, and your coral could very well blow all their zooxanthellae and die.

H2O2 never had a chance todo anything 1.5 hours after that last post of mine on here we got hit by a tornado and crashed the tank. No power for 46 hours and 90 degrees in the house took its toll. Thanks for the follow up though.

 

[HotRocks]

H2O2 never had a chance todo anything 1.5 hours after that last post of mine on here we got hit by a tornado and crashed the tank. No power for 46 hours and 90 degrees in the house took its toll. Thanks for the follow up though.

Ugh, I'm so sorry to hear that!

 

[JasonK84]

H2O2 never had a chance todo anything 1.5 hours after that last post of mine on here we got hit by a tornado and crashed the tank. No power for 46 hours and 90 degrees in the house took its toll. Thanks for the follow up though.

Oh man! I thought you had the tanks running on the inverter.

 

[Hitman]

Oh man! I thought you had the tanks running on the inverter.

Just the return pumps. Then once I found out it was going to be at least another day I had to drive an hour each way to find a portable generator in stock. Once I got back with the generator and assembled it I needed oil as it didn’t come with any so I lost another hour there. All said and done 3 hours with no water flow, temp raising much faster then I expected it was a up hill fight, once I got all the flow going 100% the tank temp was 80 and rising. Room temp was now 88 so I put all the ice I could in the sump but it was to late, ammonia spiked I’m guessing and low oxygen took over

 

[JasonK84]

Just the return pumps. Then once I found out it was going to be at least another day I had to drive an hour each way to find a portable generator in stock. Once I got back with the generator and assembled it I needed oil as it didn’t come with any so I lost another hour there. All said and done 3 hours with no water flow, temp raising much faster then I expected it was a up hill fight, once I got all the flow going 100% the tank temp was 80 and rising. Room temp was now 88 so I put all the ice I could in the sump but it was to late, ammonia spiked I’m guessing and low oxygen took over

That is unfortunate. Sorry for your loss.

 

[OBranquelinho]

I am interested in this, I have been debating using this on established reefs as a semi-annual treatment for all the things that seem to inevitably make it to the tank over time.

I have used H2O2 on 3 tanks (including a Pico) so far with mixed results while trying to battle algae, red slime and bryopsis. One tank did have a brook infection previously, but it has not returned. All were dosed at 1-2.5ml/gallon using 3% peroxide. Two tanks had no adverse issues and one crashed (I forgot that there was a large Condy in there that would react poorly with the H2O2). I have noticed that the maxi-mini anemones, and to a lesser extent the rock flower anemones, close up but do not seem worse for the wear. Xenia is always killed off, but can come back later. All rocks are white afterward, and I do not notice signs of a new cycle from bacteria die off.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

H2O2 never had a chance todo anything 1.5 hours after that last post of mine on here we got hit by a tornado and crashed the tank. No power for 46 hours and 90 degrees in the house took its toll. Thanks for the follow up though.

Aw, **** I am so sorry. That sucks big time.

 

[drstardust]

Any updates from the OP?

 

[drstardust]

Hmmmmm, I feel an experiment coming on, if I hear you correctly a 30 day treatment with H2O2 in QT could possibly be the way of the future.

The only missing component that most of us who prophylactically treat would be to add in some medicated food for 14 days...

Light component is easily removed as well on a QT.

Very interesting. We definitely need a Hanna checker for H2O2 @Hanna Instruments

For the casual reader this is not something that is tried and true yet. Just a discussion.

This is definitely worth trying. The results on brook/velvet are quite promising so far, and with regards to ich, that would require some more experimentation. Doubtful that it would affect trophonts under the epithelium, but would likely zap free swimmers as per our current mainstream meds if can be kept at a consistent concentration. If it couldn't, I think at the very least it could still be a very effective ich management tool for those who take that route.

 

[Elitecorals]

Any update on hydrogen peroxide treatment?

 

[OBranquelinho]

Well, it is not the update I had wanted to make. I was rushing and got the decimal point in the wrong place, the dosage in my mixed reef display came out closer to 90 PPM than the 9 that was desired (3ml/gal vs desired 3ml/10gal). The fish did not seem to mind the concentration, but the corals and biological filtration sure did and the system started to crash after about 45 minutes. I did several water changes and began dosing bacteria over the next 36 hrs to mitigate the damage. So far I have lost 2 damsels, an emerald crab, most of the chaeto, and several heads of candy cane, the rest looks like it will survive. On the bright side, all the nuisance algae is gone and I probably nuked any remaining diseases.

Takeaways? 90PPM is too high of a dose in a reef set up, dosing 3-7 PPM (1-2.5 ml/10 gal of 3% peroxide) has worked in the past for me and others but may be too low to affect parasites and diseases. Also, double check your math and sources- skimming the threads and seeing all the differing units of measure didn't help my math error. Having 3% and 35% peroxide doses, ml/L, mg/L, ml/gallon, various PPM dosages, and dips vs in tank doses all discussed together [as well as several combinations of units of measure in the same post!!!] all set the stage for my math error.) I still think that dosing in the display will work out, but it would have to be at least 30 days of a fairly low 7-10 PPM dose and I'm still not sure how corals will hold up to long term exposure.

 

[HomeSlizzice]

Hmmmmm, I feel an experiment coming on, if I hear you correctly a 30 day treatment with H2O2 in QT could possibly be the way of the future.

The only missing component that most of us who prophylactically treat would be to add in some medicated food for 14 days...

Light component is easily removed as well on a QT.

Very interesting. We definitely need a Hanna checker for H2O2 @Hanna Instruments

For the casual reader this is not something that is tried and true yet. Just a discussion.

This would be a really interesting experiment to see the results of. A cheap Jebao doser or a Kamoer X1 ($50-60) dosing the H2O2 every 12 hours could make this one of the most simple methods of QT... if it works.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I am a little late to the game here but very interested. One question though... couldn't you just run an ozone generator and get the same effect?

I mean, it is the weak bond of the O molecule that makes hydrogen peroxide effective. Ozone is the same...no?

Forgive me but organic chemistry was a long long time ago and I hated it at the time.

 

[dtruitt]

Apologies for the thread necromancy...

Had a butterfly that wasn't doing so hot. He looked like he had ich at first, and our experience with ich has been that fish that eat well dont have much trouble coping with ich. Heniochus was eating, so we let him be.

Yesterday afternoon, it became clear that this wasn't ich. Couldn't secure cupramine and a suitable hospital setup in time (the heniochus was in a spare tank that has been serving as more of an observation tank than a 100% functional QT).

Tank is 110L. 50 ppm = 0.05 mL / L. 110L x 0.05 mL = 5.5 mL of pure(?) H2O2 to achieve 50ppm.

Solution on hand is 3%. 5.5 / 0.03 = 183 mL to achieve 50ppm therapeutic dose. Rounded up to 200 mL for ease of measurement and faster response.

Dosed 200 mL last night, and 200 mL this morning. Heniochus was too far gone and passed this morning.

The devastation is impressive. All of the annoying mushroom corals are hurting, the snails are stunned if not outright dead, and the one hermit in there is only just now starting to stir.

I think I may move the surviving motile inverts to a holding container (definitely dont want to put them in the DT and risk contamination), and stay the course with the peroxide. I'm sure the nice live rock will turn into nice, cured at least, base rock. This will wipe out mushrooms and algae without permanently contaminating the tank or rocks.

Unless I misunderstood the directions, and that 50ppm concentration is supposed to be 50ppm of N% dilute hydrogen peroxide, this treatment as directed can definitely pose some risk to inverts.

Overall, I'm glad I tried it, because there wasn't enough time to treat the traditional way when a diagnosis was made. This also made the decision to break down the tank and rebuild it as a proper QT much, much easier.

How long until the rock is safe to put in the DT?

 

[Big G]

Sorry for your loss

Hard to say how long for the rock after the H2O2 dosing. Normally the 76 day fallow period to starve out any parasites ich and velvet a bit shorter.

 

[dtruitt]

Sorry for your loss

Hard to say how long for the rock after the H2O2 dosing. Normally the 76 day fallow period to starve out any parasites ich and velvet a bit shorter.

Truth be told, I'm just so, so grateful that it didnt infect the display tank.

Good opportunity to buy some dry rock and cure it in the uninhabitable tank while running fallow.