Hydrogen peroxide to fight marine ich

ReefGamer

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Im going to give it a shot. 1ml/8 gallons every 8 hours. Just dealing with ich. Got another guy in my hometown doing it on a big system, so we are going to compare notes.

Seems to be working for him. Will keep everyone posted.

has this been working for you? Any updates?
 

Bpfor3

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So i started on 8/20. Inverts in my tank appears unaffected, although i had an elegance that looked worse than it ever has for a day or two. Seems to have bounced back. Algae in my refugium seems uneffected. Ich wise, i am holding steady, so its hard to say. I also have a UV running and feeding a ton, with garlic and selcon. Only my 4 tangs are effected. One of them is a Powder Blue, so as long as he does not get worse, i figure i have a shot. Plan on running it for 30 days and see where i am.
 

ReefGamer

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So i started on 8/20. Inverts in my tank appears unaffected, although i had an elegance that looked worse than it ever has for a day or two. Seems to have bounced back. Algae in my refugium seems uneffected. Ich wise, i am holding steady, so its hard to say. I also have a UV running and feeding a ton, with garlic and selcon. Only my 4 tangs are effected. One of them is a Powder Blue, so as long as he does not get worse, i figure i have a shot. Plan on running it for 30 days and see where i am.
Okay, my new tang has spots on him. He’s really stressed out. Thought I might try this just to help the other fish stay strong. Are you putting it in every 8 hours even with lights on? I might just do the full dose once at night bc in the morning it would be like an hour before lights come on and then midday lights on as well.
 

Bpfor3

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What type of tang. Stress is going to play a big role. Mine have been in tank for a long time and are acting normally. If the fish is stressed, i don't think anything would help other than removing and doing full blown QT. I have a dosing pump that doses every 8 hours, once at lights out, once with lights on and once before lights on in the am.
 

ReefGamer

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What type of tang. Stress is going to play a big role. Mine have been in tank for a long time and are acting normally. If the fish is stressed, i don't think anything would help other than removing and doing full blown QT. I have a dosing pump that doses every 8 hours, once at lights out, once with lights on and once before lights on in the am.
Blue hippo tang. Stress from the tank transfer and acclimation mainly..
 

Bpfor3

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Gotcha. In my experience those are pretty resilient and not unusual to see a spot from time to time. If he is brand new and acting normally, id give it some time. If he is twitching or scratching a lot id intervene. Just have to go with your gut. (I know that is very helpful‍♂️)
 

Shooter6

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If your tangs are showing ick spots, then every fish has it. It also attacks the gills. Tang just show the infection easier do to the thin skin/scales.
garlic is useless in combating ick. It has been found to damage the fishes organs too.
 

tbaity1401

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So i started on 8/20. Inverts in my tank appears unaffected, although i had an elegance that looked worse than it ever has for a day or two. Seems to have bounced back. Algae in my refugium seems uneffected. Ich wise, i am holding steady, so its hard to say. I also have a UV running and feeding a ton, with garlic and selcon. Only my 4 tangs are effected. One of them is a Powder Blue, so as long as he does not get worse, i figure i have a shot. Plan on running it for 30 days and see where i am.

What dosing intervals are you following? For me it was really important to dose at night it seemed as peroxide oxidizes pretty quickly in light. There's a schedule detailing this the humblefish forum. Also, common sense here, but you want to keep the peroxide in the bottle and not put it in a dosing container.
 

ReefGamer

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What dosing intervals are you following? For me it was really important to dose at night it seemed as peroxide oxidizes pretty quickly in light. There's a schedule detailing this the humblefish forum. Also, common sense here, but you want to keep the peroxide in the bottle and not put it in a dosing container.
Yeah, so I should do all three doses at night right? That would be 15 ml three times for me. But during lights on and in the morning kind of pointless. Just don’t know how dosing it all at once was
 

Bpfor3

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Ideally, all doses should be lights out since peroxide degrades pretty quickly in light. My lights are on 11 am to 10 pm. So I dose at 10pm, 6 am, 2pm. It’s not ideal, but it’s what I’m doing. That’s every 8 hours. I just drill a hole in the container and dose from there. My fish look pretty good today, but I still have spots.

I don’t agree with the comments above about all fish having it and garlic. This is all antidotal And one should not make absolute statements. What works for some
May not work for all. And every tank is different. There is no way to know if all the fish have it. You may think you know, but there is no way of knowing. I do know of the garlic study, but there is also a study using marine food fish that found it did make a difference. In addition, the ich will kill the fish much faster than any long term garlic exposure so why not give it a shot. But again, all this is antidotal. The only sure way is remove the fish, and test with copper or TTM and let the tank go fallow.
 

Shooter6

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Ideally, all doses should be lights out since peroxide degrades pretty quickly in light. My lights are on 11 am to 10 pm. So I dose at 10pm, 6 am, 2pm. It’s not ideal, but it’s what I’m doing. That’s every 8 hours. I just drill a hole in the container and dose from there. My fish look pretty good today, but I still have spots.

I don’t agree with the comments above about all fish having it and garlic. This is all antidotal And one should not make absolute statements. What works for some
May not work for all. And every tank is different. There is no way to know if all the fish have it. You may think you know, but there is no way of knowing. I do know of the garlic study, but there is also a study using marine food fish that found it did make a difference. In addition, the ich will kill the fish much faster than any long term garlic exposure so why not give it a shot. But again, all this is antidotal. The only sure way is remove the fish, and test with copper or TTM and let the tank go fallow.
2 things to this statement. , put a group of people in a confined space, like an elevator for a few weeks. Add 1 person with the corona virus into the elevator.
All the others will be infected!
Every cycle each parasite releases thousands of new babies into the water. So after 10 life cycles 1 parasite will replicate into millions! This is why if a single infected fish is added to the system all the fish get infected. Its not just the skin lesions you see, the white dots, its also in the gills which you cannot see.

As far as garlic, it has been shown to damage the liver and other organs. And has no effect on the parasites.
 

Val1064

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So any updates from months later? I have ich in my reef tank and my husband wants to try the let them build immunity to it but I want to pull them all out and treat with copper. Both of us are in the right but I feel that pulling all 14 fish is best, he only wants to pull the fish that doesn't seem to be fighting this off as well as the others. We have a UV going and feed with garlic and vitamins. I just want our fish babies healthy and happy. Taking apart the reef to catch them all even after using a trap may be too much on the reef.
 

ReefMan692

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Fwiw my dt has ich and ive learned to live with it. All my fish have been survivng for quite a long time and I add new ones too. Ive lost a couple here and there and always assume it was likely ich, but for the most part between adding new fish the ich dies down and disappears.

Often its the new addition that triggers a new cycle and then I see what the new guys made of. The unfortunate problem is the new cycle can infect older fish youve had in as well.

So i dont like to willy nilly new fish im mostly happy with my stocking so I just ride it now
 

ReefMan692

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Pulling the fish and treating with copper requires you to also go fallow for 60+ days (getting longer all the time). If you dont then when you reintroduce them they will just get sick again
 

Bpfor3

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the peroxide did not work for me long term. Neither did the 150 W UV. within 7-10 days of turning it off, my powder blue tang starts with the spots. Honestly, if it was not for him, i think it would be fine. I have an orange shoulder tang, purple tang, regal tang, Angels, wrasses, fox face and none of them show spots until the PBlue has them for a week or more. Then, i only see a spot of two on one or two of the tangs. Turn the UV back on and spots disappear. My tank is in great shape, i feed a ton of food, LRS, Rods, Nori, mysis, TDO pellets, fish roe. All my fish are fat and happy, but for whatever reason the ich mangnet Pblue keeps the cycle going. just Fyi, at 150 W UV is 6 ft long. I had to hook it up to my apex to turn off at 80 degrees bc it heats the water so much. Water is crystal clear though.
 

Shooter6

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So any updates from months later? I have ich in my reef tank and my husband wants to try the let them build immunity to it but I want to pull them all out and treat with copper. Both of us are in the right but I feel that pulling all 14 fish is best, he only wants to pull the fish that doesn't seem to be fighting this off as well as the others. We have a UV going and feed with garlic and vitamins. I just want our fish babies healthy and happy. Taking apart the reef to catch them all even after using a trap may be too much on the reef.
They dont build an immunity to it just like people dont build an immunity to hiv,hepatitis,gonorrhea ect.
Only pulling fish that show signs Nd treating them is pointless if youe are going to return them to the infected system.
The minute they are returned, they will be reinfected.
 

ajiisss

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PolypLab Medic peroxide salts works in temporarily treating your fish and lowering ich population; however it won’t eradicate ich.

The only way to eradicate ich is to copper or hypo treat all your fish, and leave your tank fallow for 6-8 weeks (coral and inverts can stay in the tank).

Then, moving forward, quarantine everything that goes in your tank (ie fish, coral, inverts, rock etc.). Even a small frag can introduce ich to your system.

Unless you’re done adding stuff to your tank and willing to go fallow, I would just soak your food in Selcon and garlic and let your fish build a tolerance to ich. Quarantining new fish is not so hard, but quarantining everything takes some real discipline that many people don’t have, including me.
True
 

Bioloco (EasyReefs)

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Goodmornig everyone.

By my work I used H2O2 a lot of times like treatment to ICH during years and I can said some things about this threatment.

The first one is that these treatments are efectives and you could clean your fishes complety but i don't consider that treatment reef safe. One buddy has said that peroxide is photosensible and is true, the light decompose the H2O2. Too, de peroxide react with the diferents organics sustance disolv in the aquarium so it is neutraliced before to be efective. Thas is a problem because you need used hight doses and the redox can go up dangerously. If your corals have any problem with oxidative estress they can be very affected or death if they are in the limit of estress oxidative tolerance. If you want used peroxide to ich better use it in a quarentene. If you don't have an aquarium quarentene the safe dosification could be a little help but non a 100% efective treatment.

In other hand, efectives doses of H2O2 can affect the fishies coloration so some times you need a threatment secundary to recover the original coloration.

By my experience with ICH, to users I prefer advise never make overpopulation the aquarium. to Introduce the fishies time to time making sure that ich is not present. To use the best food possible to reforce the fishies inmunitary system before the infection and have and aquarium quarentene. If your fishies have a strong inmunitary system they will recover easyly with the commun advises. When all fail, without and aislated aquarium quarentene, your options down and you only can try increasse the fishies inmunology system helped with a very good UV (not all the UV are good), and if necesary take out the most affected fishies. Copper and hyposalinity, only can be used in quarentene aquarium and only efectives with commun strain. With agresives strain or weakened fishies traditional method are inefectives.
 
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