Dosing Hydrogen Peroxide - The best kept secret for algae and dinos

[Jim28fl]

I'll add that nothing is a cure all in this hobby. Poor husbandry will not be fixed by skimmers, H202 dosing, 10% water changes or total replacement of a tank system.
good maintence and an understanding of how n why reef tanks operate sets people up for success.

I am using H202 via a Oxydator 24/7 in all my tanks for the last 8 months now, and i started with no issues and i still have no issues in the system.
I believe it keeps my fish healthier, the water clearer , glass cleaner, my ORP up, and cost very very little to do annually. Like water changes. I use it as part of my preventative maintenance routine.

I think in many cases it has cured cyano and algae issues to some extent for some folks. But a tank full of phosphates will always be a tank full of phosphates until you cure the underlying problem putting them there. Bad flow or light needs better flow and more light to fix.
A tank with low dissolved oxygen will stress the fish to some extent and seems to add to algae and cyan issues and effects bacteria types and lvls among many other things. Dosing H202 among other things can help with the dissolved oxygen lvl in the water. And I think more importantly and what most folks don't understand about it is that it only takes a small small amount dosed constantly to keep the lvl up. A much less effective way is to dump 5 Ml of h202 into the tank each day, vs a fraction of a drip dissolved into the water column constantly. Even a doser set to. 5ml every hour will be far less effective and use much more h202 to get the same result as a Oxydator which is dissolving it into the water every minute of every day. They have developed a superior way to dose fractions of a milliliter into the water constantly and consistently in there product.

75-100 ml of 3% last me 45 days in my 30 gallon system for example as i have it set now.

I think the point is its a tool being used successfully in the hobby that many folks don't know anything about, and unfortunately immediately think its a gimmick or a miss understanding of whats happening when its implemented.

[brandon429]

I would agree with that. The fact the oxydator doesnt have the known sensitives that straight dosing does means its universally tolerated, at least, from what Ive seen. Ive seen no consistent losses attributed to it, ever
and this includes bee shrimp fw tanks, im into that as well w micro setups. so many German forum master planted tank, ultra sensitive taiwans house big oxydators shrimp crawling right on them.


any device that increases oxygenation in this hobby is valid. skimmer is the same, its hardware. dosing peroxide is liquidware



too much can kill. just the right amount produces eighty page threads, search around for em.

I too agree max export is the root of all reef succes. no tank is exported harder than mine, its a blizzard of back to back water changes leaving only sparkle for the next 5 yrs. but the interim trick never told to us was always this:

do nothing to your water params for low to medium level algae outbreaks


act on the algae

resist the urge to follow this decade and think everything needs phosphate scrubbing (in the 90s it was all nitrate)

sure its indicated if you have special needs due to noncare or overstocking

but mostly you just act on the algae, then it stops coming back for a long time even though you didnt change nutrients. we have never been given formal permission to act independently of nutrients, see how many times on our peroxide threads we asked about or managed phosphate.

its just a tool in the shed for sure. if anyone can lessen their need on cheats to the point of needing none, seize that path and post it. Then apply it as a custom approach to other tanks and collect all that and post it, make a new method~

[brandon429]

Justin Credabel was the first person I ever read using it. we just watched as the posts grew and took note of the repeating variables about what happens when you dump it in the tank.

once we took a 180 gallon mixed sps reef racked with invasive macro algae down to bare rock and corals only with 1:10 dosing (one mil per ten gallons vol) it was like something went in there and hand picked/killed at the cellular level every macro and did nothing to the delicate corals, fish or inverts. we posted myriad overdose threads, and showed that our filtration bacteria are the toughest most resistant life forms in our tank to peroxide and that goes against common assumption. dilution counts...makes it a weaker oxidizer which is why so many tanks survive gross overdoses and we just documented another at R2R reef forum.

as with any method there are one offs, losses, but our threads show no issue with losses. only times it did, or didnt work on a vast array of invaders.

the one thing I notice thread after thread is the amazing, amazing withholding at direct action. I see those tanks and think "you could be free tomorrow man"

but usually the posts about correcting bandaids comes next and I let it run. lost another one (someone who leaves the target in tank awaiting only indirect approach options)

we'll have posters come in "ive already had biopellets, gfo and grazers established before with perfect params, then I got bryopsis"

and they're told to further drop phosphates past set points

then corals bleach, algae persists, we get them in a wreck mostly, see these pics and the algae persists (because it is mostly nutrient independent, our tests show clean but its accessing traces by its very physical catch all structure and from the water)


http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359
each of those tanks had that one golden early day where the green was a 2x2 patch, then we started ID threads about it and the patch grew.

I personally used to fireburn, nothing killed my tank anyway long before having been shown peroxide. if you have something pop up and your grazer didnt touch it, go ahead and be decisive and your tank will not die. permission to act granted. in the meantime make sure to manage phosphate and nitrate but if that doesnt work, dont post an id thread just factor the known sensitives in your tank and apply the good serum

[PapaDragon]

The oxidator references using a 6% H2O2 concentration is that safe?

[PapaDragon]

I just installed one of these to dose h2o2 in my tank, but I'm a little confused by the instructions. Should I see bubbles or not? From the diagram it looks like the catalyst causes o2 to accumulate at the top of the acrylic container and the pressure buildup forces out some h2o2 out the bottom of the acrylic container. When I first put it in yesterday I did see a faint stream of bubbles coming from the container, but this morning I only see one big bubble every minute or so.

[Jim28fl]

Should only see bubbles exiting the unit and going to the surface occasionally few times a day. The tiny micro bubble will be constantly pressurizing the device on the inside, at a set rate based on the percentage you used and the size catalyst you use. which directly determine the breakdown rate of the H202 into O2 n H20.

I like mine to release a bubble to the tank surface occasionally and mind you the first few days your tank water will be saturating with Oxygen and may take a bit to reach a balance. I use 3% and one large catalyst on my 30 gallon and 3% and 2 large catalyst on my 100 gallons set up. Both produce some excess 02 in the midday light cycle. not exactly sure why at mid day, but thats when i notice the one large bubble or two exit the unit and rise to the surface every few minutes maybe once every 30.

Let us know what sort of changes you notice in your tank.

[toomanytanks]

7275


Hey guys,

It's been a while since my last post on this thread I started. I have to say, things are still going great and H202 is pretty awesome stuff in reef tanks! I wonder what the long-term effects of using H202 are? Anyway, here's some pics of my tank and everything being happy and algae-free (courtesy of iPhone 6):

[toomanytanks]

78And a couple more...


81

[Jim28fl]

I'd like folks to do a follow up on how there personal units have been performing and any feed back they have. I may order some more for future raffles. I personally still have them running on all tanks and am satisfied as always. its part of my maintenance to top up the OXYDATORS as needed.. and to be honest sometimes there empty for a week maybe before i get to them. But what i like is it doesnt seem to cause any issues.

I have finally got some occasional cyano to show up on one of the higher nutrient systems which always has an oxydator on it. I attribute it to needing new T5 bulbs and poorer water quality. its very sparce and in low flow areas which I prefer not to ramp up the flow because of the delicate hammer colony LSP growing there.

[JerryLA]

New here and reading up on algae control. I rushed out to get peroxide, hoping to save some zoanthids that are under attack from algae. Greetings from Little Rock!

[adryannot]

Hey all,

I just wanted to share with you the great success I've had dosing Hydrogen Peroxide for over a week now. The reason I started to dose H2O2 is because of the reef tank menace otherwise known as Dinoflagellates. Dinos are very hard to get rid of, and if not attacked early, will almost certainly destroy your tank. I have had them before and had to wrap my tank in black plastic with the lights out for about a week before they would disappear. Even then, they came back after 2 days or so and I ended up having to break down my reef.

I cringed when I saw them show up in my display tank a couple weeks ago. They kept growing and growing and were making my tank look slimy and disgusting. I scoured the internet for removal methods and they all seemed hit or miss. I came across a few threads on dosing 3% H2O2 with mixed results, but mostly good. Knowing my history with dinos, I figured I had nothing to lose.

I turned my lights out and began dosing 10mL 3% H2O2 every night per 10 gallons of display tank volume. I kept my lights out for three days completely, and then turned the timer back on. I maintained the dosing schedule up to the present. When I inspected my tank after the three day lights out and dosing period, I was astonished and relieved to see THE DINOS WERE GONE! Further, my tank had never been clearer, the rocks were algae free, and my glass was even algae free! This stuff is amazing. The only algae that was left in my entire tank was the coraline. The H2O2 had killed off every other type of algae in the tank. My corals still look great and do not look affected by the treatment, at all. I have SPS, anemones, leathers, zoas, gonios, hammers, you name it. None of them were affected and all had great polyp extension.

If you ever have a dino problem - or any algae problem for that matter - please consider H2O2 dosing. It is the best kept secret in invasive nuisance algae treatment. It is also a great frag dip btw.

Hello. You said that you started with 10ml per 10 gallon. In my case, i have a 92 galoons tank. Isn't too much to start with 90ml ?
And after the first day, did you continue dosing 10 ml per gallon?

[Jim28fl]

Id start off at half that for two days. and if possible try n break it up into two rounds. the more frequently you dose a smaller amount the more effective it is and doesnt just off gas tot he surface. id add it to the return section and try n get it to suspend as long as possible it literally hits the water and almost instantly convert to pure oxygen and water via a reaction with the metal compounds in the water and other weak bonds it can use as the catalyst for the break down reaction. the goal is to increase dissolved 02 in the water column which is highly variable. its not a cure all by any means. there is alot more to this concert as well. let me know any questions. i do not dose pure h202 into my water i use a Oxydator.