pico reef pest algae problem challenge

[pscott99]

Sourced from my local farm supply store thanks brandon429.
Shelf life stored in a cool dry place 1 year
$22 CD 4litre

Use gloves and eye glasses.

I plan on diluting down as well. No sense wasting it.

[pscott99]

FYI it is now used in place of chlorine in water treatment, pools, cleaning......learning lots about this stuff.

[thebanker]

Originally Posted by brandon429

one tiny errant splash of accidentally-sloshed 35% will cook your cornea, no rinse for five minutes, whine to the er doc, its done. It is instant denaturation of eyeball protein, in less than a second.

This needs to be repeated. Wear eye protection people, or use the 3% unless you have adequate experience handling concentrated hazardous chemicals.

[brandon429]

yes~!

my video is almost done I need to film one more part tonite then I'll edit it and upload. You are going to think this is funny. I drip straight 35% right on a red mushroom, sit there on cam while its sizzling with no water in the tank (direct application) you can see it clear as day, then next day he's back open fully with no tissue insult

thought youd think thats funny.

Im so mad, now I will have to lighter burn it off. apparently 35% peroxide will burn your skin white for three hours, tingling, making you contemplate permanent nerve damage (which its not but feels so) but it will not kill a corallimorph no matter what you do to it. They must drink 3% naturally or something?~!

Ive killed smaller pedal buds of these red invaders with 35% but when they get a little bigger they are totally immune how amazing is that.
The good part of the video shows my glass getting immaculately cleaned after I let it green up pretty bad

[Mangodude]

Treated a clump of cheato and HA and calurpa mixed together and after a week, the results are:

Calurpa - white (dead)
Cheato - normal
HA - normal

Could it be that the calurpa absorbed more of the h202 than the others?

btw, I filled a cup up of h202 and threw this thing in for 5 min so I know it came into contact with everything


Peroxide did have negative effects on gracci hayi however it did not completely kill the clump (turn 3/4 white).

h202 succesfully worked on my zoa frags and on gsp.

the zoas and gsp looked annoyed for a few days but are now open all the time..

[brandon429]

did you take pics of any of that?

Also, was your peroxide bottle brand new or had it been opened before. We are starting to get more treaters who were using old bottles, getting slower results. GHA is the most susceptible organism I can think of to peroxide so if it didn't kill it there is something off, its consistent across treatments as the first thing to die. Post up the after pics let me get a look at em

[brandon429]

http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/cont...slime-part-iii

Not much of an update here but in this thread I enjoy collecting absolutely anything that involves peroxide in the reef tank. In this case, noted master Dr Tim Hovanek which we all know through articles/posts etc made comment about it, -endorsing- its use at the 35% ratio, in the reef tank when battling the extremely rare white slime that we used to see on forums a few years ago.

The point I took away was that it was -not- going through and wiping out mass bacterial colonies, other than the target, or the most notable bacterial specialist you and I can consult wouldn't be recommending it. Matter of fact, the writers of the article sounded skeptical about his recommendation to dose it and he's the phd!

[Ralph ATL]

I've about ten spots where it is starting to reappear....

All but two areas are tiny tufts that I treated with kalk, RO, H2O2 paste....it's always worked when it's been almost completely covered...

Those other two areas I treated with kalk, RO, and H2O2, however, I'm thinking I'll have to retreat....outside tank.

[brandon429]

so... Hovanec has a 'c' not a 'k' if you don't catch missspells in an hour Rc locks them in time...nice

that sounds reasonable to need a follow up treatment depending on the initial infestation type, density

[brandon429]

I did my treatment last nite to catch some new algae, editing the takes tonite for upload finally just a short little run but at least it shows what I've done to my pico fifty times

[Mangodude]

No pics sorry

will it kill sea lettuce do you think?

oh, it was an old bottle btw. I plan on trying again in a few days with a new bottle

[brandon429]

I haven't seen any pics involving ulva or similar growths but I bet it will!

[Ralph ATL]

So far, sooo good...I have two to three spots to re-treat with paste....99% have been eradicated....again, so far......

[brandon429]

Finally, after more than a year- a video of simple treatments in my own vase.

This kind of testing is the basis for my preference of peroxide use in removing algae and recommending it to others using custom approaches based on tank inhabitants and what the before pictures show in terms of density and placement of the invading target. Interestingly, this video shows direct dropper application of 35% to a red mushroom corallimorph with before and after pictures below (anemone gets healthier after treatment, irony huh)

The peroxide will not froth up on clean glass, it requires a susceptible biological presence to begin the bubbling action (it also doesn't bubble when on skin, ask me how I know)

Since my glass hadn't been cleaned of the typical green haze in weeks (let it green up for the vid) the froth was instant when I was wiping the inner surfaces down with a paper towel soaked in 35%.

I still use 3% for spot killing of algae, its strong enough, thought Id try some 35% on a mushroom but since it didn't work (the animal is not suscpetible) I chose to use a lighter + razor blade scraping to burn it off. I already have a video of burning in the pico reef so I didn't bother to upload that one.

Some collateral actions we can see in the video:

-this activity has happened more times than I can count, my tank is used to full tank drains, staying empty for several mins during treatment, and systemically containing residual peroxide of both 35% and 3% as I refill/drain again to export most of it back out. If 35% was really that destructive, my gallon reef could not take it. It is based on this discovery that we have seen in this thread how easy it is for larger reefs to use weaker dilutions to kill their own pests. Notice the way I drain, treat, refill, drain, refill--this minimizes contact time. Its easy for nano reefs to use this method, for the larger tanks who can't drain/refill you can see as the thread unfolds we are learning whole tank dosing methods that take longer to manifest a cure but still work given the constraints of these inaccessible tanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fk8R3clElQ

the pictures included are just after the tank was refilled, showing the red mushroom all shriveled up, then the next day after it was fully open again! The last picture is next day after this treatment video, showing all corals open and healthy after this extremely strong treatment with powerful 35% oxidizer/peroxide

[brandon429]

on the second drain and refill, to export the peroxide I had wiped on the glass, here's a pic of my corals and coral banded shrimp stuck on an island of air for another 4 minutes while I am wrapping things up. This shrimp, and all the other inverts Ive kept in the bowls over the years have never minded such a drain and refill, Ive always done 100% water changes and I am certain they harm absolutely nothing on the rocks surface, not even common hitchiker sponges.

For the sensitive fish and decorative sponges that don't like total emersion, I say don't stock them anyway in a pico reef. 100% water changes are the right way to keep a gallon pico reef alive, one of the reasons you don't see aged gallon reefs on the web is because its not being done.

[goldmaniac]

I've been testing with different amounts of FRESH h2o2 in tank water for 5 minute dips. here are my findings so far:

160 mL of H2o2 per gallon: the majority of hair algae falls off within 24 hours, corals are fine, but algae comes back.

120 mL of H2o2 per gallon: most of hair algae falls off within48 hours, corals are fine, but algae comes back. very slightly more algae remains after a dip than when the 160 ml h2o2/gallon ratio.

80 mL of h202 per gallon: hair algae seems unaffected. no difference.

I've tested all three of these different ratios on zoas/palys, florida mushrooms, toadstool & kenya tree soft corals, a lobo, and my snails & hermit crabs, all for a period of 5 minutes. All organisms seem fine 24 hours after dipping.

I've been vacuuming the crushed coral substrate for this hair algae, draining the crushed coral, and then putting in an h2o2 solution 5 minute periods while i pick out the hair algae clumps, and then I return the crushed coral back into the tank.
Last night i upped the ratio and when i vacuumed the substrate, i added a 3:1 ratio (3 parts salt water, 1 part h2o2) for 5 minutes and then returned the crushed coral to the tank. I'm wondering what strength is too strong for hermit crabs, snails, and corals.

[brandon429]

I had mentioned in the other post it is strange you are getting algae regrowth using a dilution 100+ times stronger than what we are using in tanks that beat the algae

You really should make pics of those dip runs before and after

[brandon429]

I'm interested in the corals surviving that dip strength that's neat

[KafudaFish]

Thanks for the video.

You working in your tank reminds me of working in our linen closet and me spackling the walls even though I couldn't move more than a few inches before having to stop and reposition things.

[Ralph ATL]

After complete section by section treatement of my tank at about 10 days apart, i am having great results without complete retreatment of rocks.......So far, so good! I have a a couple of tufts of "Bryopsis" every other day, and I've been able to nuke it with my Kalk past of Mrs. wages lime/RODI/H2O2 concoction, and so far none of t has reproduced in that same spot.....it's about 10 ml total application.

I have two more spots tonite.

[Tickyty]

@Brandon,

Have you heard of any occurences of toad stools being negatively affected by spraying the base with H2O2? Mine has not come around since the treatment a month ago.

[brandon429]

honestly I can't recall which thread it was in by now but we did have someone doing drained spot treatments around a kenya tree coral and a toadstool with no harm. Im very suprised a basal treatment affected the colony, has it died or just not opened yet fully> I ask because in brainstorming I wonder if some stress made it go into its withdrawl/shedding of mucus tunic phase or something but no that was never shown to be overly sensitive, keep me informed

[goldmaniac]

another report of test dips:

strength: a 25% solution of H2O2 in salt water, 1:3 ratio of h2o2 to salt water

dip: removed frags from the display tank and dipped into this solution for 5 minutes

specimens: 4 frags of zoas/palys

results: in 48 hours, all zoas/palys look fine, they're open as usual, and ALL hair algae is gone. This is much more than my previous dips with lower solutions -the rock is wiped bare of hair algae, unlike the lower strengths, where lots of tufts were left after much of the hair algae fell off after a dip.

[brandon429]

You are torturing me without pics lol

[mdenigris]

What appears to be Dinoflagellates has suddenly shown up on two fist sized rocks at the top of my rock pile in my 72. Sounds like a candidate for your method.

The pest seems to have mostly covered these two rocks. Since I can remove the rocks, do you recommend a dip in a 50 / 50 solution of ro and 3%?