hydrogen peroxide adds oxygen?

[vthondaboi]

My friend came up with an idea and was wondering if anyone had thoughts on it.

During a power outage, could you add hydrogen peroxide to the water to oxygenate the tank?

 

[birdman1979]

I would feel a lot better using a $10 battery operated air pump.

 

[kar93]

I wouldnt. It is a weak acid that can be used as a bleaching agent. It may also be used as a disinfectant. Due to it being acidic (even though its weak) it would most likely lower the waters PH.

 

[orchidsnfish]

Just something kind of related. People with planted freshwater tanks use hydrogen peroxide to kill hair algae (put it directly on the hair algae). I have wondered if it would work on our evil version...so if your going to be dumping h2o2 in your tank anyway would you mind trying that out for me? JK

 

[toaster77]

i wouldn't. it is an oxidizing agent and will likely cause a lot of bleaching and stress to your corals. it will also mess up your ORP likely.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

I work at a pet store and part of our power outage procedures state that 1 ml of hydrogen peroxide can be added per gallon of water if fish start gulping at the surface. We only carry freshwater though.

Hydrogen peroxide is h2o2 and I believe should dissociate to h20 + o, which is water and oxygen.

 

[Peter Eichler]

Your friend didn't come up with this, it has been used in the hobby for many years. There are some concerns with it but it's not a bad idea in desperate situations.

 

[kar93]

The only time I've ever heard of it being used is in freshwater tanks, it is a powerful oxidizer that can kill bacteria. I wouldn't want to use it in a reef tank because so much time, effort and money has been put into it I would rather spend more money on a generator.

 

[tangers]

I know a lot of people who have done it down here in Florida during hurricane outages. In one case it saved a guys 75 full reef for 2 weeks!