Reef2Reef Pest algae challenge thread hydrogen peroxide

[Ryengoth]

Ok - I started another thread on caulerpa, but i'm going to close that one down and ask my questions here.

I've been reading through this thread and perhaps I missed it, but if I have rock that is completely covered in caulerpa, like more than 75% of the surface exposed to light covered in caulerpa, can I take that rock out, manually remove as much as a i can and then dip in H2o2 at 3% to kill it?

Additional details on my husbandry:
- weekly water changes of 20% (20 gallons each)
- GFO reactor currently running
- reduced T5 lighting from 10 hours to 7 hours
- reduced feedings to just 2 per day from 3
- added additional skimmer to sump to pull more waste out
- changed RODI filters about 3 months ago

Fortunately, only one of my tanks is currently affected by the caulerpa.

Thank you.

The GFO is most likely contributing iron to the green algae species. Even without light the green algae can survive on the iron. I've already tested that in a control tank and despite what people -think- happens, it will go dormant without chloroplast activity and die after a LONG time of complete darkness. Switch to alum if you need massive phos and nitrate reduction, or create an algae mat using the blue+white floss pad in a cross-flow area of your sump and run white lighting 2-3 hours a day to encourage bacterial and algae growth there. The only way to eliminate the nitrates and phos is to stop feeding completely. I stopped feeding my fish for a week over vacation, killed ALL of the LED lighting and all my algae and dinos disappeared. As SOON as I fed the fish, the glass was slick the following morning. Grrr..

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I stopped feeding my fish for a week over vacation, killed ALL of the LED lighting and all my algae and dinos disappeared. As SOON as I fed the fish, the glass was slick the following morning. Grrr..

thats not normal.
if that really happened your tank is not processing or exporting nutrients correctly at all. are you running a refugium or ats?

 

[Ryengoth]

thats not normal.
if that really happened your tank is not processing or exporting nutrients correctly at all. are you running a refugium or ats?

Algae mat floating on top of the middle refugium chamber - 3 chamber sump. Lots of stomas and pods. I've also seen a couple of baby stars wandering around the glass which is odd since they normally stay in the rock or sand. I'm running lights off except during feeding this week. Only 2 feedings per week. The skimmer is running fairly wet but only pulling a small amount of organics. The sump is almost clear of green algae now and mostly coralline from the Hydra52 in there.

 

[brandon429]

agreed and thanks tons for posting! that is the ideal test rock, compared to other rocks you only hand removed or maybe tested as a diluted dip in another container (that way we aren't making guesses on the whole tank)

that algae you have will die really fast after peroxide. the reason ideally you should just dump some and not hand remove the target is because we want to see whats the minimum action that will rid the rock of the target growth. if just that works, it'll be worth a tank cleaning and disassembly to catch you up.

even though its grown in, this invader is not bad we can fix this in steps for sure.

 

[brandon429]

*your caulerpa fits an interesting classification among invaders, the obligate hitchhiker profile. The direct impact of that means the ability to eradicate the organism disregarding nutrients... it works like this:

One cannot generate your invader by adding nutrients to a tank where it did not hitchhike in... so that means if you kill it even via non nutrient controls, it can't come back until reimported.

We know peroxide will clear it, but your test rocks are for grow back indication.

Nutrients no doubt can work as fertilizers or suppressants for algae growth, but considering their origin really opens up cure options since direct action on rocks is so much faster as a remover

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Algae mat floating on top of the middle refugium chamber - 3 chamber sump. Lots of stomas and pods. I've also seen a couple of baby stars wandering around the glass which is odd since they normally stay in the rock or sand. I'm running lights off except during feeding this week. Only 2 feedings per week. The skimmer is running fairly wet but only pulling a small amount of organics. The sump is almost clear of green algae now and mostly coralline from the Hydra52 in there.

you really want your sump full of funk. it should be totally gross. if its gross the tank should be pristine. Thats the theory and balance you try for imo ime. its where you keep you guts.
plants in the refugium out compete the ones in the dt and are trimmed as "export". leftover food goes to your gut for final digestion and the rest is "exported" and the now clean blood goes back up to your head and vital organs.
as cool as it is the hyra is likeley not a goor refugium light as it doesnt have enough of what algae needs to grow. Plants like full even spectrum. A reef lamp only gives reef light and the algae can only scavange what it needs. I give mine plant light.

you could also slow the return flow for longer digestion time(3x 5x) or put a sponge before the return to Polish the water and trap DOC's in the sump to be processed further. or add a simple dsb to the fuge to bolster bacterial population(extra colon).

 

[brandon429]

I agree to that. we are all going to be generating waste and floc and detr, collect it where you can get to it eventually and -attack- as needed or if this is someones ATS fuel source at least its in a cleanable controllable place.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I agree to that. we are all going to be generating waste and floc and detr, collect it where you can get to it eventually and -attack- as needed or if this is someones ATS fuel source at least its in a cleanable controllable place.

Sup B.

 

[brandon429]

a second physical character comes into play here regarding caulerpa: weak holdfasts.

Bryopsis is the debbil
you burn it out, and it comes back from deep-seated holdfasts unless you scrape them out and take a little rock with us during the force removal

caulerpa casts its tendril-like holdfasts all around but they only look menacing...they really aren't that deep into the rock and I don't even think they grow plant mass from only a white strand picked off. they need parts of their actual green flesh left around to regenerate, and those areas are typically not in the rock they are floating up above it, anchored by those white holdfasts.

caulerpa is so impacted by peroxide that simple 1:10 tank dosing usually fixes it even though I really don't like recommending that method without the test run at least. in other words, this isn't hard to fix invader in 99% cases. valonia/bryopsis would all be much worse risk

if you don't have sensitives in the tank, then usually just simple water zapping makes that caulerpa melt off. I like to hand remove all of it to avoid an asexual response before doing in tank treatment

 

[Ryengoth]

you really want your sump full of funk. it should be totally gross. if its gross the tank should be pristine. Thats the theory and balance you try for imo ime. its where you keep you guts.
plants in the refugium out compete the ones in the dt and are trimmed as "export". leftover food goes to your gut for final digestion and the rest is "exported" and the now clean blood goes back up to your head and vital organs.
as cool as it is the hyra is likeley not a goor refugium light as it doesnt have enough of what algae needs to grow. Plants like full even spectrum. A reef lamp only gives reef light and the algae can only scavange what it needs. I give mine plant light.

you could also slow the return flow for longer digestion time(3x 5x) or put a sponge before the return to Polish the water and trap DOC's in the sump to be processed further. or add a simple dsb to the fuge to bolster bacterial population(extra colon).

I know. Unfortunately mine got out of balance after the peroxide testing and I had no choice but to reset it all. I still have some adult and junior pods and stomas around the tank+sump and just finished stirring the DT up and the sump and polishing the water with 100-micron felt changes. The DT base and inside the rockwork was loaded with detritus. Working on getting dhk back up to 10 (8.2 right now) but everything else is in good condition. My birdsnests and zoas are happy and sprouting like crazy so I'm going to swap the Hydra light out with a plant light and run it 4h a day with a new piece of floss mat. My money plant is gone, just died and dissolved so it was not getting enough nutrients in the sump.

 

[Jenaleigh1]

Hey, I just have to say THANK YOU so much to whoever put this thread together. It saved my tank, and probably my participation in this little hobby of ours. I went from an absolute infestation of hair algae to well on the road to recovery in three weeks vs. spending the past 18 months and about a thousand dollars buying crap to get rid of the algae. This is the story of my tank! Thank you!!!! https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/innovative-marine-30l.185640/

 

[brandon429]

Thanks tons for posting that, I read the thread and can see your tank is clean and well taken care of, can grow reef quite well, just a handy extra cleaner boost via peroxide to gain upper hand might be the swing vote.

Those gorgs you keep, diodogorgia I think they are, won't grow in my tank at all I'm jealous

 

[corey01]

so here is a question. and ill post pictures of my algae issue and how 3% is dealing with it later.
but on my quest to find 35% peroxide which I could not find anywhere I came across developer for the hair industry.
I found 40 volume clear developer, the ingredients are water, hydrogen peroxide and phosphoric acid. the 40 = 12% strength peroxide
does anyone know what phosphoric acid is? or how it could impact a reef tank if any residual were introduced into the tank, diluted or otherwise?

 

[Ryengoth]

Do not use developer. You'll end up building phosphates from it and dropping your PH.

 

[Ryengoth]

http://www.hydrogen2o2.com/35-food-grade-hydrogen-peroxide/shop/1-gallon

 

[brandon429]

I must digress

No less than 500 pages online exists using it

All peroxide history is built on using that stabilizer. Food grade is cleaner but not required

There's no way it's bad for a reef tank but ok to put in a cut or in your mouth or in your ear, those stabilizers are USP medically certified. Not impactful, use food grade if concerned

This very thread, the same. Food grade is the minority use we're at twelve pages

 

[Ryengoth]

I must digress

No less than 500 pages online exists using it

All peroxide history is built on using that stabilizer. Food grade is cheaper

There's no way it's bad for a reef tank but ok to put in a cup or in your mouth or in your ear

The levels are likely higher in developer solution than food grade h2o2. I'd trust food grade h2o2 with a small amount of phos acid than developer that could be 5-10%. If you are running GFO good luck with that kinda of phos acid volume. It'll make ferric phosphates. I'd rather avoid the potential issues. Do some testing on it first and post the results?

 

[brandon429]

I'm only basing on the threads, null results, all the data is built on it

The food grade is the rarity, the one percent

Those are the results imo

We don't have loss or contamination problems with it, we have non kill of target as the major shortcoming, enter rasping stage left or 35%

No impact of stabilizers based on entire peroxide history using them for thirty years, the clean stuff is the rarity

If it interacts with GFo is OK to use food grade, but we've been using it with GFo since the reef central thread

 

[Ryengoth]

So it's been discussed a lot where developer solution is being used in reef tanks? I've love to see which percentage and brands so I can look up the formulations.

 

[brandon429]

Are you meaning the stuff off shelves at pharmacy or gro store? That's what most are using
The other atypical stuff is the hydro farm plant use peroxide, the hair bleaching kind and the food grade

The most common is the stuff for cuts and scrapes, has those stabilizers

I use only c35% clean grade in mine but not due to stabilizer concern, due to strength and all mixes of 3% being wimp water lol