Is it safe to use Hydrogen Peroxide to kill the Hair Algae on my Acan Frags?

[that Fish Guy]

Is it safe to dip my Acan Frags in Hydrogen Peroxide to kill the Hair Algae on them?

I ask because I read about people doing this with Zoanthids and having great success without harming their Zoos.

I want to make sure it will be ok with Acans before I try as they are a different type of Coral.

 

[nova65ss]

I have dipped my acans several times in peroxide to kill several differnet types of algaes.

 

[MechEng99]

Me too...no problems so far. I use the regular stuff from the store (not the super concentrated stuff) at a 10:1 tank water to hydrogen peroxide ratio. I dip for about 20 seconds (longer can be fine, but 20 seconds is usually good enough.) The acans will usually have some bubbles under their tissue, but they will work themselves out quickly.

 

[that Fish Guy]

Are all Corals safe with Hydrogen Peroxide or no?

Why does the HP kill Algae but not kill the Coral itself?

 

[tmz]

No, some corals react very poorly v to the oxidation.

Monitpora, chalice varieties , some acros and likely others don't like it much.

It burns flesh; effects vary to membrane tissue structure which determines how much burning a particular organism can take. Nobody knows for sure species by species in varying tank conditions.
If you have any mini brittle starss hanging on a frag being dipped, for example ;they will drop dead in their tracks, pods will scurry to get away and may survive but no doubt they are affected,lots ofbristle worms will float out and some will die. Dosed t oa tak it will kill lots of things. As a dip it's not too bad for certain croalsparticularly for red turfalgae attacks.
IME, bropsis will come right back, red turf and hair algae die off and take a while to come back. Zoanthus do fine with a dip of 4 parts tank water to 1 part 3% peroxide for 6 to 8 minutes. use it with care ; it is sterlization technique and kills lots of things, some good and some bad. I dipped a micromussa frag and it is fine.

 

[wheelman76]

I have a symphyllia that keeps getting algae that grows on the skeleton , which seems to stop the flesh from fully covering the skeleton, I'm not sure what type of algae , it's a yellowish color that sticks to the skeleton, its not hairy at all. Should a hydrogen peroxide dip be ok for it? And if so how strong and for how long would you recommend Tom?

 

[that Fish Guy]

So how long should I dip for?

One person says 20 seconds while another says 6-8 minutes.

Those times are far apart.

Does anybody else have an opinion on this?

 

[tmz]

Wheelman,
Personally, I've not tried it on a symphyllia o a large fleshy coral of any kind,ecept a small micromussa colony.

 

[tmz]

So how long should I dip for?

One person says 20 seconds while another says 6-8 minutes.

Those times are far apart.

Does anybody else have an opinion on this?

20seconds might be sufficient for some situations. My experience is with zoanthus and red turf and hair algae and is what works best for me with those corals. I have dipped aros but some react poorly, so I don't do that any more.
There is always some risk to living things with it ,seen and unseen. After the dip, letting the dipped piece sit for 15 minutes or so in a container of tank water with some flow in should help insure against significant amounts of peroxide entering the tank itself.

 

[HBPat]

I have dipped Acans in a 50/50 tank/preroxide or up to 3 minutes with not detrimental affects to the acans. They slime up profusely but recover overnight.

I have done this for GHA (kills it outright) and Bryopsis (comes back eventually unless you can scrub the rock)

 

[matilian]

I used 50/50 mix with the stuff at the store which i think is 3% solution. I use a syringe with the rock out of the water and try to avoid it touching the coral as much as possible unless a zoa which dont seem to really mind it so i soak. I don't like sps out of the water so only let them out for 8 minutes max. I take the rock out and use the syringe to wet as much as I can till my timer goes off and then rinse and put back in the tank. My acan is a small piece so it was only out of the water for about 5 minutes. I had really bad caulerpa (liked to call it my in tank fuge)and it seems to kill it well and praying it doesnt come back. It's been about 3 weeks and dont see any signs of return where as before when I would scrub the rocks and pick as much of the runners and holdfast out as much as possible with tweezers and it would be back in a week. I feel bad for the bristle worms and pods that were sacrificed but i was at the point of starting over so they took one for the team. I also had red turf which turned hot pink and dies within 48 hours and isn't back and only had some hair on my candy cane which was COVERED except for the heads and looks great. I think it's funny that aiptasia is not fazed by it in my experience. I bet if you soaked for a long time the aiptasia would die but seems to be ok with under 10 min. You can see the affect. look at the rocks on the left side vs. right side. The left were the only ones not treated in this pic which.

 

[that Fish Guy]

Does the Hair Algae just die and fall off the frag plug or do you have to pull it off after the HP dip?

 

[tmz]

I like to pull some of it it off first;can't resist; but it should die right there in a matter of days;turn white and disappear i,f the particular "hair" algae is sensitive to it.

 

[bryanracing95]

Wouldn't it also work to dip in a aqueous solution of algae fix marine and tank water? I have thought of trying this but didn't know if a single dip would be effective or if the algae had to be exposed to the treatment for a extended period of time?

 

[Rayzback]

I don't get it on the coral myself, but I have used a cotton swab and dabbed the algae around a coral on a plug. It acted like a bleach for me, the algae seemed to lose it's chlorophyll, turned white and died.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[footballdude2k3]

The other option would be to just lower your nitrates so you do not have to risk losing coral...just sayin

 

[carverbeezkneez]

I use a 30% to 40% peroxide to water dip whenever I get algae. The dip is for about 3 minutes or so, just keep an eye on things you can kind of tell. Sometimes bubbles get under the tissue like someone said earlier, but things work themselves out. I have only had trouble with some sps, most coral seems to react fine. It seems that the thinner the tissue the worse the reaction, if the coral is to react negatively. Just make sure to tweezer or pick off as much as possbile before the dip. I just dipped some acan frags the other day, they look great. It does take a day or so for the algae to react and die off completely.
Andrew

 

[tmz]

The other option would be to just lower your nitrates so you do not have to risk losing coral...just sayin

My No3 is undetecable and I still get algae in zoanthus colonies and others from time to time. Most algaes are not nitrate limited even at very low levels.Many are
PO4 limited but some not so much.

 

[matilian]

The other option would be to just lower your nitrates so you do not have to risk losing coral...just sayin

My No3 is undetecable and I still get algae in zoanthus colonies and others from time to time. Most algaes are not nitrate limited even at very low levels.Many are
PO4 limited but some not so much.

agreed. My tank is about a year old and a half old and even back in my cycling days I never had nitrates detectable. Not sure if the rocks i had were leaching phos or what or the caulerpa is just stubborn I was always so confused that my corals grew great and everything was perfect except has mass amounts of caulerpa and limited GHA. I tried GFO and all that did was make my corals bleach a bit. I tried chaeto along with GFO and that didnt help. I think once the algae is established you cant do much because it seemed like i was running a ULNS with an in tank fuge. now that the algae is dead its not coming back and corals look great. I removed my GFO, killed the algae with h2o2 and now in happy land. now that the algae is gone my corals use the nutrients since they have the leg up on the algae. we'll see what happens over time but h202 was a savior for me. my bioload is low and literally never had detactable nitrate or phos yet had an algae prob all along until i killed it. I'm not the most experienced reefer but am a bio major and like to think i have a pretty good understanding of reef chemistry. if you think about it, corals and algae like the same things as coral have algae growing inside of them. furthermore the best coral reefs in nature have algae too just have tons of things eating it keeping it in check. honestly i dont think having algae means you are nesecarily a failure just need to get the balance right. I mean if you truly ran a nutrient free system your corals would die too. i'm an avid scuba dive and dove some great reefs in the world and all of them have macro algae and GHA along with hundreds of typs of red algae.

 

[tmz]

The right balance of nutrients may include a need for additional organic carbon in a small glass box packed with a very unnatural density of life .Other export filtration methods too.

The extra heterotrophic bacteria encouraged by this type of dosing can keep nitrogen and phospahorus closer to natural seawater(nsw) which limit many nuisance algaes for the majority of tank surfaces. PO4 surface values are around.005ppm with NO3 around0.2ppm in reef surface waters . Most tanks even low nutreint tanks are considerably times higher than that. Further the reef has a constant supply of nutrients at those very low levels and not 0. Plenty of plankton too.
FWIW, ny tanks run at < .03ppm PO4nd NO3 at <0.2ppmppm .I've dosed moderate amounts of vodka and vinegar for extra organics for over 4 years. There is virtually no nuisance algae or cyanobacteria ,except for spots of red turf algae. . A new frag plug or zoanthid colony may have some from time to time. and a peroxide dip works on some of those. i would not use it for a whole tank treatment.
Rodophyta( red alages) usually don't seem to care much if orthophosphate is low,btw. Bryopsis , a green fernlike algae hangs in there with low PO4 and even comes right after peroxide treatments.