Peroxide only reef ?

[atoll]

(aside: I think it would be fun to work out if it's possible to use H2O2 as an additive to a system where the power has been lost to keep O2 levels from going too low. That would require knowing the breakdown rate which would depend on what organics/enzymes the H2O2 ran into. Too complicated to be actually useful, I think)

An Oxydator will do that, nay it has saved any number of aquarium.fish both FW and SW when under a power cut. As with peroxide dosing it will also oxidise ammonia. The Oxydator is such a simple device that has the potential to save an aquarium due to.kack of O2 and ammonia poisoning.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

An Oxydator will do that, nay it has saved any number of aquarium.fish both FW and SW when under a power cut. As with peroxide dosing it will also oxidise ammonia. The Oxydator is such a simple device that has the potential to save an aquarium due to.kack of O2 and ammonia poisoning.

Would be interesting to see a side by side test of that hypothesis.

Even if the oxydator oxygenated during a power failure, does simple diffusion bring out enough O2 to be useful across the tank? That's the sort of question only a test can answer.

 

[atoll]

Would be interesting to see a side by side test of that hypothesis.

Even if the oxydator oxygenated during a power failure, does simple diffusion bring out enough O2 to be useful across the tank? That's the sort of question only a test can answer.

How about this for a test.

Power failure on a 50 gallon marine tank.
Fish hiding some seen gasping. Oxydator transfered from the sump to the DT.
Result, fish became active breathing much better after around 20minutes.
No losses
Power resumed.
All was well.

The O2 levels are measurable in both circumstances of course.

There are other accounts of similar as reported on various forums inc the Oxydator user group.

If somebody would like to replicate the above or carry out any appropriate test then fine it could only add to the above.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How about this for a test.

Power failure on a 50 gallon marine tank.
Fish hiding some seen gasping. Oxydator transfered from the sump to the DT.
Result, fish became active breathing much better after around 20minutes.
No losses
Power resumed.
All was well.

The O2 levels are measurable in both circumstances of course.

There are other accounts of similar as reported on various forums inc the Oxydator user group.

If somebody would like to replicate the above or carry out any appropriate test then fine it could only add to the above.

Useful, but I’d rather see a side by side comparison.

How do you believe O2 gets from the oxidator the fish if it does not get from the tank surface to the fish?

 

[atoll]

Useful, but I’d rather see a side by side comparison.

How do you believe O2 gets from the oxidator the fish if it does not get from the tank surface to the fish?

Söchting explain that fully in their explination on how the Oxydator works. However from memory by diffusion of O2 into the water.
Quick Google.
http://www.aquariumoxygenator.com/

 

[taricha]

An Oxydator will do that, nay it has saved any number of aquarium.fish both FW and SW when under a power cut.

An oxydator would be a good way to test H2O2 for this use, since it puts a known amount of a certain concentration peroxide in contact with a set catalyst. So the decomposition rate to O2 is decently controlled.
With lack of flow, there are certainly other parts of the tank that would go/remain low O2 - so they'd be out of luck, but at least near the unit there should be O2 increased.
This would all be easy to test with an O2 meter.

As with peroxide dosing it will also oxidise ammonia.

Nah. h2o2 doesn't do anything much interesting directly to ammonia in saltwater. Indirectly, it might provide O2 to more surfaces that can oxidize ammonia biologically.

edit: unless you had too much H2O2 near those surfaces. You might slow down your nitrifiers.
Ammonia Oxidation in the Ocean Can Be Inhibited by Nanomolar Concentrations of Hydrogen Peroxide

 

[brandon429]

I predict using peroxide as a continuous maintenance dose will do nothing to alter the life arc of the reef at all and no measurable parameter will change compared to a non peroxide reef.

Peroxide isn't what makes a reef tank self sustaining, especially a sandbedded reef.

Lysmata shrimp are very sensitive to any level of peroxide in the water, irritation level maximums vary across groups we keep in the tank. One mil of 3% per ten gallons was the repeated safe dose daily for thousands of reefs, lysmata not included. Anywhere beyond that degree and you're approaching irritant levels until the dose degrades, in my opinion

We took some sps reefs to 4 mils per ten gallons fighting dinos before and nothing crashed... that's likely beyond the irritation thresh

*agreed that oxydators don't harm shrimp, they don't harm anything. lots of bee shrimp tanks online use them without harm. its the raw liquid dose that has a threshold

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Söchting explain that fully in their explination on how the Oxydator works. However from memory by diffusion of O2 into the water.
Quick Google.
http://www.aquariumoxygenator.com/

I don’t see any attempted explanation at answering my question, nor do they even mention power failures at that link, but I’m not going to belabor the point. It certainly may be at least somewhat useful in a power failure, especially if you mix the water somehow.

 

[atoll]

Useful, but I’d rather see a side by side comparison.

How do you believe O2 gets from the oxidator the fish if it does not get from the tank surface to the fish?

Quote
"Pure oxygen created by the Söchting Oxydator is mostly immediately dissolved in the water"
I thought that answered that question.

More info here.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4784765A/en

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Quote
"Pure oxygen created by the Söchting Oxydator is mostly immediately dissolved in the water"
I thought that answered that question.

More info here.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4784765A/en

No. Oxygen also immediately dissolves at the tank top. The question is why it would get from the oxidator to fish on the other side of the tank when it cannot travel down from the tank top. Sure, there can be a higher concentration at the oxydator, but it is also farther away from many places in the tank.

Diffusion is a very slow process, which is why fish die when circulation stops.

 

[brandon429]

how can the currents in a normally-running reef tank not distribute it evenly though given the constant gas output + flow?

someone go find an inert dye and squirt some in, lets see how fast a couple zips disperses and guesstimate gaseous xfer off that. I bet it distributes fast and even over the course of ten mins mixing

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

how can the currents in a normally-running reef tank not distribute it evenly though given the constant gas output + flow?

someone go find an inert dye and squirt some in, lets see how fast a couple zips disperses and guesstimate gaseous xfer off that. I bet it distributes fast and even over the course of ten mins mixing

Not sure I understand your question. We were talking about a power failure.

 

[atoll]

Diffusion is a very slow process, which is why fish die when circulation stops.

They don't when there us an Oxydator charged correctly with the right % of peroxide and number of catalysts. Others have reported similar survival in similar circumstances as I posted above.

You can measure the increase in O2 using an Oxydator. I have using a Dupla O2 and
Sera oxygen kits which although not being the most accurate showed a definite increase in O2 when an Oxydator was introduced. Perhaps as you suggest somebody would like to put it further to the test. In the meantime I will draw on my own experiences and that of others.

 

[atoll]

@Lasse may like to add his experience and thoughts on the above posts.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

diffusion is too slow to bring O2 across a tank. There must be water movement of some sort.

 

[atoll]

diffusion is too slow to bring O2 across a tank. There must be water movement of some sort.

Why? How much movement would be required? Fish produce movement wouldn't that be enough? If there is far less O2 in one area of a tank and much more in another wouldn't the super charged area of oxygen simply migrate into the far lower areas anyway?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Why? How much movement would be required? Fish produce movement wouldn't that be enough? If there is far less O2 in one area of a tank and much more in another wouldn't the super charged area of oxygen simply migrate into the far lower areas anyway?

Fish certainly drive some movement. A study showed it takes 60 h for O2 to diffuse from the top to the bottom of a bucket of seawater.

Regardless the point is why one would think a point source of O2 can get O2 across a tank when the whole tank top cannot. That question remains no matter what type of movement we are talking about.

Overall, I am skeptical of claims it helped, which sound remarkably similar to claims that Seachem Prime saves fish from ammonia.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Why? How much movement would be required? Fish produce movement wouldn't that be enough? If there is far less O2 in one area of a tank and much more in another wouldn't the super charged area of oxygen simply migrate into the far lower areas anyway?

A single point source that is only 5 times as concentrated in O2 as the whole tank top does not really seem that dramatically better to me.

 

[Lasse]

Sure, there can be a higher concentration at the oxydator, but it is also farther away from many places in the tank.

Diffusion is a very slow process, which is why fish die when circulation stops.

I have used pure H2O2 both in waste water driven (very high BOD) fish tanks and fish farm tanks during hours of power break down - no circulation. Oxygen will spread very fast when added inside the tanks. . In one case we withhold oxygen saturation down to bottom in a 3 m deep 40 000 L tank with only pure H2O2 loaded water into the first 30 cm of the tank depth for 18 hours. I confirm both concentrations and spread with an electronic probe. It was a waste water driven tank (very high BOD5) and the only movement was created by the fishes. It was not dense populated - it was an example and show tank. To use H2O2 and also oxydators at power break has been my standard method for years. Its my experiences that diffusion between two media (air and water) is slow but spread (caused by different levels of concentration inside a media) is rather fast, especially if the gas is introduced in the bottom layers. Its can also be that way that H2O2 in contact with water (and especially saltwater) will cause a rather high oversaturation in the contact area, hence a higher equalization effect due to high concentration differences

A study showed it takes 60 h for O2 to diffuse from the top to the bottom of a bucket of seawater.

IMO - very surprising - density of O2 = 1.42 g/L - density of water 1000 g/L. I´m surprised that only molecule movement can mix surface oxygen into the bottom in only 60 hours. In our case - with oxydators - the oxygen will enter the water column in the bottom of the aquarium and add vertical movement into the molecule movement.

When we did experiment with emergency use of pure oxygen in fish tanks - we get the best result if we combine the size of the bubbles and the overpressure of the O2 in that way that the bubbles barely reached the surface or very few of them get up in the air . We did not need to have diffusers over the whole bottom area - it was enough to have a diffuser tube around the sides. We confirm both concentrations and spread with Oxygen probes

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I have used pure H2O2 both in waste water driven (very high BOD) fish tanks and fish farm tanks during hours of power break down - no circulation. Oxygen will spread very fast when added inside the tanks. . In one case we withhold oxygen saturation down to bottom in a 3 m deep 40 000 L tank with only pure H2O2 loaded water into the first 30 cm of the tank depth for 18 hours. I confirm both concentrations and spread with an electronic probe. It was a waste water driven tank (very high BOD5) and the only movement was created by the fishes. It was not dense populated - it was an example and show tank. To use H2O2 and also oxydators at power break has been my standard method for years. Its my experiences that diffusion between two media (air and water) is slow but spread (caused by different levels of concentration inside a media) is rather fast, especially if the gas is introduced in the bottom layers. Its can also be that way that H2O2 in contact with water (and especially saltwater) will cause a rather high oversaturation in the contact area, hence a higher equalization effect due to high concentration differences


IMO - very surprising - density of O2 = 1.42 g/L - density of water 1000 g/L. I´m surprised that only molecule movement can mix surface oxygen into the bottom in only 60 hours. In our case - with oxydators - the oxygen will enter the water column in the bottom of the aquarium and add vertical movement into the molecule movement.

When we did experiment with emergency use of pure oxygen in fish tanks - we get the best result if we combine the size of the bubbles and the overpressure of the O2 in that way that the bubbles barely reached the surface or very few of them get up in the air . We did not need to have diffusers over the whole bottom area - it was enough to have a diffuser tube around the sides. We confirm both concentrations and spread with Oxygen probes

Sincerely Lasse

Diffusion of dissolved molecules is unrelated to density of the pure material. It is mostly sized based.

In any case, bubbles coming up will cause water movement that will be way faster than diffusion. I assumed we were talking about a device added O2 near the top only.