Hydrogen peroxide as a chemical tool for your reef tank

[revhtree]

Hey R2R fam! Let's talk—hydrogen peroxide.

We often hear about its versatile applications in various fields, but its use in reef tanks has been a subject of discussion more and more lately. I would love to hear your answers to the following questions:

1. Are you currently using peroxide as a chemical tool in your reef tank and for what reason?

2. Have you found hydrogen peroxide to be effective in tackling specific issues such as algae outbreaks or pests?

3. How do you determine the appropriate dosage and application method to ensure the safety of your corals, fish, and invertebrates?

4. Have you encountered any challenges or drawbacks when using hydrogen peroxide for your reef tank?

Please sum up in a post your experience and usage of peroxide!

 

[Reefer Matt]

While dosing peroxide has never done anything for me, I do use it for frags with algae on them though.

 

[ForTheLoveOfCoral21]

1. Are you currently using peroxide as a chemical tool in your reef tank and for what reason?

• I am using it, 100 ML of 3% for a 70 gallon system

2. Have you found hydrogen peroxide to be effective in tackling specific issues such as algae outbreaks or pests?

• Yes, it helps a TON with algae as i feed a lot, it also keeps my white sand.... white

3. How do you determine the appropriate dosage and application method to ensure the safety of your corals, fish, and invertebrates?

• Google and R2R

4. Have you encountered any challenges or drawbacks when using hydrogen peroxide for your reef tank?

• Pods are all gone, i dose using @Dinkins Aquatic Gardens now.

 

[Cell]

I love using it as a coral dip for algae and some pests. I don't really measure carefully, I just add until I see bubbles.

 

[brandon429]

in my opinion peroxide is the single greatest reef hack I've ever been shown. it is also a very early example in the hobby of anecdote setting precedence that will last as long as the hobby does. on paper, perx is supposed to be a tank wrecker

but in reality, it's a tank saver. I estimate to have 500+ pages of work threads using it in other people's reefs with great joy. we know which organisms are tolerant, sensitive etc and what it's likely to do in people's reefs, it's quite controlled in fact which is also not supposed to be the case with blanket-applied oxidizers. it is a chief reason my pico reef has been cheated out to age 17 yrs running. love the bubbly

(even when it doesn't bubble it works, bubbling is an indication of bacterial species on the target or not that are catalase enzyme positive iirc)

 

[Dburr1014]

Algae on new coral plugs. Works great.

 

[brandon429]

of ten thousand logged applications my fav way of using it is always after surgical rasping. I never apply it to targets we can see/nor do we in tank rehab threads

if there was algae on a rock, we take that rock out and use a knife to roughly scrape/debride the algae away from it's anchor, actual scraping that scratches or gouges the rock is what removes the algae, there is no target left to see. it's rinsed away. then on the clean spot, perx is applied solely to burn out leftover cells we can't see. that's the power move technique

on my frag plugs I knife scrape roughly all the concrete areas around the coral flesh, then apply it to the cleaned areas for quite a bit better sustain than application to target. #1 reef tool I've ever been shown in reefing by far = peroxide. Justin Credabel deserves backpats for writing about it in 2010, I saw it mentioned in a blog writing he did is how I came to know it.

 

[brandon429]

we may read about peroxide harming a reef tank's biofilter, that's been written throughout it's use.

paradigm shift:

it surely does not harm the biofilter in a reef display, cycling bac are housed and protected and insulated within slicks and scums: see any seneye-guided in-tank peroxide test-- peroxide added to a reef tank temporarily boosts its nitrification rate in yet another big irony (adding oxygen to a group of hungry aerobes makes them work temporarily faster, we think)

inside a reef display it would take a huge irregular sustained dose of peroxide far beyond what we'd ever use to harm the biofilter. it's quickly diluted in a reef display and has a degradation time of about 4 hours going off the hundreds of orp studies online after it's addition into a display. that's not strong enough to kill insulated filter bacteria.

*testing done with peroxide on filter bacteria outside of a reef display do not transfer over to the actions within a reef display* testing on steel/lab/plastic QT surfaces simply isn't the same context in many ways, and the results don't transfer over to reef displays. to discern what peroxide does in a reef display, get a calibrated seneye and test inside a display. post those findings.

 

[EricR]

Too afraid to dose H2O2 although I've seen it recommended for dinoflagellates and other nuisances.

I use it for:
- Dipping corals that have algae on plugs
- Scrubbing snail shells that have algae
- Hybrid Tank Transfer Method (HTTM) for fish -- 2 baths at 150ppm for 30 minutes, spaced 6 days apart

*have tried to use H2O2 to eradicate sponges from zoa patches but never had luck with that

 

[Miami Reef]

I don’t use hydrogen peroxide at all.

 

[Troylee]

Dips, ich~dose,Dino’s…. Works great!

 

[Zero_Cool]

I just used it as a method to eradicate dinos. Combined with reduced light periods/intensity and MB7 this took care of 99% in 5 days.

I have continued to dose it as a preventative.

 

[JoJosReef]

I use it on frags.

Frag first gets examined for nasty hitchhikers like aiptasia. Then gunk like GHA or Valonia gets scraped off. Then goes into ReVive. Then into clean saltwater for a bit. Then I take out the frag, pipette H2O2 onto the entire frag plug and the base or skeleton of all corals, avoiding H2O2 directly into the polyp. Then back into new clean saltwater to fizz for a bit. Then into the tank.

Of course, some corals like plates cannot get this treatment, but I usually get the parts not covered in flesh.

 

[19Mateo83]

I just used it as a method to eradicate dinos. Combined with reduced light periods/intensity and MB7 this took care of 99% in 5 days.

I have continued to dose it as a preventative.

This works like a charm, thank @vetteguy53081 for this recipe for success.

I also use it to dip frags to remove nuisance algae.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

I used it to soak gha covered rock. Works like a champ.

 

[Reefer911]

1. Are you currently using peroxide as a chemical tool in your reef tank and for what reason?

• I am using it, 100 ML of 3% for a 70 gallon system

2. Have you found hydrogen peroxide to be effective in tackling specific issues such as algae outbreaks or pests?

• Yes, it helps a TON with algae as i feed a lot, it also keeps my white sand.... white

3. How do you determine the appropriate dosage and application method to ensure the safety of your corals, fish, and invertebrates?

• Google and R2R

4. Have you encountered any challenges or drawbacks when using hydrogen peroxide for your reef tank?

• Pods are all gone, i dose using @Dinkins Aquatic Gardens now.

Does hydrogen peroxide kill pods?

 

[RedReefer]

I have used it on Frags to scrub as a dip. I’m scared to use it in tank. What is the proper ratio for using it as a dip? What is the proper ratio for using it in tank?

 

[debken]

Hey R2R fam! Let's talk—hydrogen peroxide.

We often hear about its versatile applications in various fields, but its use in reef tanks has been a subject of discussion more and more lately. I would love to hear your answers to the following questions:

1. Are you currently using peroxide as a chemical tool in your reef tank and for what reason?

2. Have you found hydrogen peroxide to be effective in tackling specific issues such as algae outbreaks or pests?

3. How do you determine the appropriate dosage and application method to ensure the safety of your corals, fish, and invertebrates?

4. Have you encountered any challenges or drawbacks when using hydrogen peroxide for your reef tank?

Please sum up in a post your experience and usage of peroxide!

Not only does it help with bacterial infections in corals, algae, but keeps tank threatening marine ich, and velvet at bay (much safer for long term life expectancy of fish compared to copper). I use as a dip and also keep oxydators in each of my reef tanks.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I've worked with hydrogen peroxide a bit as a means of algae control. I found that it is tricky to use, as the dose needed to kill hair algae seems lower than that which kills ornamental shrimp and nitrifying bacteria.

It has also gotten a lot of "press" as a cure for protozoan diseases. Here is something I wrote up about that on another thread:

Hydrogen Peroxide - as a low dose, static bath to treat acute disease issues.

The history of peroxide use goes like this: a paper was published showing how 75 ppm peroxide baths would eliminate Amyloodinium on Pacific threadfin fish. These fish were cured if the dips were done twice and the fish moved to clean tanks each time. Somebody read that and thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if low dose peroxide used as a static bath would work on ich?" They then began pushing the idea out there as an "experiment". The problem is that peroxide at levels high enough to kill ich theronts can also harm the beneficial bacteria, and sometimes ornamental shrimp. Additionally, hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizer. Like all of these (chlorine, ozone, permanganate etc.) the level of active chemical in the water is related to the organic levels. The less organics in the water, the higher the active dose. As you add peroxide, it consumes organics, causing a rise in unreacted peroxide. So - you need to use test strips to monitor that change.

Hydrogen peroxide has been shown to cause a reduction in theronts in marine aquariums, but the dose tested for an 80% reduction was 10 ppm, which is pretty high to use as a static bath.

The only time I would suggest it is when a person is attempting what is called "ich management" - as an adjunct treatment to a whole suite of efforts:

1) strong UV sterilizer
2) frequent water changes
3) siphoning the sand early every morning
4) good mechanical filtration to remove theronts
5) low dose peroxide additions

Ich management works if you catch the infection early enough and do it right. Once the number of trophonts on the fish reach a certain point (perhaps 30 or so spots on any one fish) then "propagule pressure" comes into play, where the effects of the trophonts themselves stresses the fish and the ich management techniques start to fail.

Here is an article I wrote that discusses some of that:

Hydrogen Peroxide Bench-testing

Bench testing of the effects of hydrogen peroxide in aquariums.

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[brandon429]

thought I would list the top few peroxide work threads I know of on the internet. this is a massive trove of other people's tanks on peroxide, for a litany of reasons (invasions, algae, dinos, cyano, from these links we can discern if tank harm happened, if coral harm happened, if targets were killed or just grew back)

to see what happens if 800+ people dump peroxide into their reefs in a semi-controlled manner, click away below to read.

#1 Troy's peroxide thread is the oldest one I know of. this is fifty pages of people dosing 1 mil per ten gallons of 3% peroxide into tanks challenged by dinos. result: about 90% happy, they show

Dinoflagellates my experience......h2o2 reefing tool!!!!!

aaaaaaarrrrrrr just wanted to share my recent battle and how i won!!!!!!!!! "i wish i took pics but i didn't..:(" so about 3 weeks ago my tank broke out pretty bad i mean bad!!!!!! my coast to coast overflow would get plugged and almost overflow my tank..... so i did my research and found...

www.reef2reef.com

#2. for shameless self plugs the rest are mine he he

65 pages of the same. reefmiser started the thread, I 'jacked it and turned it into a work thread. *this was the thread that originally showed me peroxide in reefing, and saved my pico reef from gha destruction.

Peroxide saves my Tank! With pics to Prove It!

I had been hearing about the use of Hydrogen Peroxide as a way to deal with pest algae, so I figured that I would give it a try. I had a nasty case of bryopsis and had tried everything you can imagine to beat it. I tried new bulbs, nudibranchs, chaeto, a seahare (RIP), Tech-M, new RO filter. I ca...

www.nano-reef.com

3. 60 or so pages, reefcentral.
*this is a LOT of in-tank dosing into the water, 1:10 ratio, and several overdose accidents. in here you can track what happens if someone accidentally dumps 2 quarts of peroxide lol into their reef/bad lol

pico reef pest algae problem challenge - Reef Central Online Community

pico reef pest algae problem challenge Nano Reefs

reefcentral.com

4. from our site here, we beat the hound out of invasive Ulva here that's for sure. this is very few in-tank doses, and 90% rasping outside the tank/surgical means for cures of GHA

Reef2Reef Pest algae challenge thread hydrogen peroxide

What you are really in for: Hand cleaning, hard work siphon and rasp-removing of accumulations and invasions outside the tank and doing massive water changes is 90% of this thread, peroxide is 10%. We almost never dose peroxide into the tank water, this is a you-work-physically-hard as catch-up...

www.reef2reef.com

notice this trend: I never asked anyone to test for ammonia not one time in a decade. assumed safe, always, except if someone dumps in two quarts lol.