brandon429
Active member
hey can you include a full tank shot standing back so we can see the scope of the problem and any corals that are involved, just curious
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pico reef pest algae problem challenge
- Thread starter brandon429
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brandon429
Active member
at least there doesn't seem to be the kinds of corals that detest its use. tank looks open for treatment, whichever one you choose. The fish are not a concern at all in that dosage nor the filter bacteria. at least that part is a safe bet. thats a pretty big tank for this little nanos challenge, but give it a week or two holding steady can't wait to see. nothing is as fast as a spot treatment though
biecacka
Active member
thats my thoughts as well but i was just asking. what are some other means i could try. i just put carbon and phosban in some reactors about 2 wks ago and started running it
corey
ryeguyy84
New member
I need to do one more treatment but here's an update. It's been pretty busy hoping to get to another treatment tomorrow
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brandon429
Active member
it is better. those last few spots are bothering me I might go crazy if you don't zap them yesterday
SimonSKL
New member
I know this is a pico forum but I just want to share my experience with using H2O2 in fighting GHA. I have been fighting with GHA in my tank for over 2 years and I have done everything that I could think of (regular water change, GFO, GAC, biopellets, Algaefix, manual removal... etc). My water parameters are all normal but the GHA just kept growing. I believe I have both the bryopsis and derbesia which are quite resistant to Algaefix.
I lost quite a few corals which I believe were smothered by the GHA. I am just about to tear my tank down and start over then I read about H2O2. As bad as my tank is I am not ready to dose the entire tank with H2O2 so I used the dipping method. Here is a FT shot of my tank from Oct 2011 which I am quite embarrassed to show.
To show you just how bad my GHA was, look at the snail here on the glass completely covered with GHA. Poor thing it is supposed to eat algae but now was covered with it.
I have 92g corner tank and a 29g tank, both have GHA problem. To test the H2O2 effectiveness I tested it with a colony of GSP from my 29g tank. Here is the colony of GSP that had heavy growth of GHA just after I returned it to the display tank after dipping in 50:50 H2O2 for 3 min.
24 hours later
36 hours later
Here is a picture of my candy cane coral after dipping in H2O2. Notice the blistering from the O2 being released. I thought I have killed the coral.
36 hours later. This morning I noticed nice tentacles extension from the coral. It survived the blistering!
I will post more before and after pictures of other targets later. So far I am happy with the results. Hopefully there is no bad long term effect on the corals. Time will tell but I was desperate.
I lost quite a few corals which I believe were smothered by the GHA. I am just about to tear my tank down and start over then I read about H2O2. As bad as my tank is I am not ready to dose the entire tank with H2O2 so I used the dipping method. Here is a FT shot of my tank from Oct 2011 which I am quite embarrassed to show.
To show you just how bad my GHA was, look at the snail here on the glass completely covered with GHA. Poor thing it is supposed to eat algae but now was covered with it.
I have 92g corner tank and a 29g tank, both have GHA problem. To test the H2O2 effectiveness I tested it with a colony of GSP from my 29g tank. Here is the colony of GSP that had heavy growth of GHA just after I returned it to the display tank after dipping in 50:50 H2O2 for 3 min.
24 hours later
36 hours later
Here is a picture of my candy cane coral after dipping in H2O2. Notice the blistering from the O2 being released. I thought I have killed the coral.
36 hours later. This morning I noticed nice tentacles extension from the coral. It survived the blistering!
I will post more before and after pictures of other targets later. So far I am happy with the results. Hopefully there is no bad long term effect on the corals. Time will tell but I was desperate.
brandon429
Active member
Very nice pics, thanks for posting!
What about dipping only the base portion of any LPS in the solution, so that the polyps don't touch the peroxide>
also your before shots aren't bad, most of the aged tanks we see across threads have that much allowable GHA/pest but Im glad to know you have super high standards for algae control such that you didn't want it to remain in that state.
that bubbling on the caulastrea was serious looking wow!
Smaller tanks have it so much easier than large tanks who can't drain to reach the spot as easy. out of all the peroxide additions Ive done to my little gallon bowl hardly any touches actual coral, its a nice way to run the dosing even before things get too far gone.
Really helpful post Simon thank you for contributing!
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What about dipping only the base portion of any LPS in the solution, so that the polyps don't touch the peroxide>
also your before shots aren't bad, most of the aged tanks we see across threads have that much allowable GHA/pest but Im glad to know you have super high standards for algae control such that you didn't want it to remain in that state.
that bubbling on the caulastrea was serious looking wow!
Smaller tanks have it so much easier than large tanks who can't drain to reach the spot as easy. out of all the peroxide additions Ive done to my little gallon bowl hardly any touches actual coral, its a nice way to run the dosing even before things get too far gone.
Really helpful post Simon thank you for contributing!
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SimonSKL
New member
Here are a few more pictures from this morning
Candy Coral - Doing great with nice tentacles extension this morning
Except the orange zoa on top (that was dipped two days ago), this whole rock was washed with 50:50 H2O2 yesterday. Picture was taken after the rock was returned to the display tank
What the rock looks like this morning after 24 hours
My large colony of Candy Coral yesterday
24 hours later
Bird Nest before
Bird Nest 3 days later. Probably need another dip
Candy Coral - Doing great with nice tentacles extension this morning
Except the orange zoa on top (that was dipped two days ago), this whole rock was washed with 50:50 H2O2 yesterday. Picture was taken after the rock was returned to the display tank
What the rock looks like this morning after 24 hours
My large colony of Candy Coral yesterday
24 hours later
Bird Nest before
Bird Nest 3 days later. Probably need another dip
brandon429
Active member
Congrats Simon its the most shocking before and after series of pics Ive seen. w link this to other boards so they can see your work, really great.
Before:
After:
It was a small amount under the frag in the before pic and now the white area in the after.
I found two more areas on one of my rocks around New Years when I was doing a WC. I drain the entire tank each time so with the rock being exposed soaked a Q-tip and placed each end on an area. Those are gone.
Last night I saw a new area pop up so I will fight that soon too.
I started thinking why now? But it makes sense. My tank is around 1.5 years old and I have noticed that many people have GHA issues with tanks that are between 1 - 2 years old and they fight them for about 6 months before either winning or quiting.
It is good to know I can deal with this in a simple manner.
Sorry for the blurry shot of the before. I had two pics. of the algae and I guess I used the other one.
After:
It was a small amount under the frag in the before pic and now the white area in the after.
I found two more areas on one of my rocks around New Years when I was doing a WC. I drain the entire tank each time so with the rock being exposed soaked a Q-tip and placed each end on an area. Those are gone.
Last night I saw a new area pop up so I will fight that soon too.
I started thinking why now? But it makes sense. My tank is around 1.5 years old and I have noticed that many people have GHA issues with tanks that are between 1 - 2 years old and they fight them for about 6 months before either winning or quiting.
It is good to know I can deal with this in a simple manner.
Sorry for the blurry shot of the before. I had two pics. of the algae and I guess I used the other one.
jimrawr
New member
Simon thanks for the post and nice pics. I am somewhat in the same boat with you, but I think your GHA is worse than mine. I am thinking of doing dips too, but I am not sure there is really a point when there is no way to really eradicate it from the system. So when you are dipping those pieces, you arent totally removing it from you tank and it will just spread there. What are your thoughts on this?
I am considering removing sections of my rock work (left one day, mid next day, right next day) and dipping the rocks as much as I can, and then spot treating the tops of the rocks where the corals are. I dont think this will be effective either though unless I get every single rock, and also every powerhead, clean out my sump completely, etc. It will always just work as maintenance but will never solve the problem completely.
I am considering removing sections of my rock work (left one day, mid next day, right next day) and dipping the rocks as much as I can, and then spot treating the tops of the rocks where the corals are. I dont think this will be effective either though unless I get every single rock, and also every powerhead, clean out my sump completely, etc. It will always just work as maintenance but will never solve the problem completely.
SimonSKL
New member
Jim, my experience with H2O2 is quite new. May be others who have more experience can chime in to comment regarding spreading of GHA.
The first piece of coral (a small frag of Candy Cane) that I dipped in H2O2 was about 10 days ago. I made the mistake of dunking the whole frag in for almost 3 minutes. The coral started blistering as soon as I put it back into the tank (see my earlier post). The coral recovered nicely and I have noticed no new growth of GHA on it after almost 10 days.
I have also dipped several large pieces of rocks in H2O2 in the past few days and so far my tank looks a lot cleaner with most of the GHA gone. There are still some around the rocks at the bottom of my tank which I couldn't get to. I intend to keep running GFO, biopelllets, GAC, and vinegar to keep PO4 low and hopefully keep the algae from spreading.
I am hoping the dipped rocks and corals would keep the algae off for a long period (like months) so I don't have to keep redoing this task. I have spent far more time pulling the algae off by hand. The peroxide method just gives me another quick and effective tool to battle this pest. Time will tell if this process has long term negative impact to the growth of corals. I was just desperate
.:headwalls:Here is my FTS from last evening which you can compare to the picture I took in Oct.
Good luck!
jimrawr
New member
I just tried it myself, took out about 8 rocks that were on the top of my rockwork, and dipped them in H2O2. If they had corals I tried to just use a dropper and dose it onto the rest of the rock and avoid the corals. I did this on a few LPS/detached corals that were on my sandbed the other day, and it worked well. Seems like this will be a tool/aid in beating GHA, but with larger tanks (mines also a 92g corner) it will be near impossible to eradicate like this because of the scope of things.
Ill be using this in conjunction with GFO (Ive found this stuff to be pretty useless even if I change it every two days), skimming, macro algae, and I think most importantly a algae turf scrubber. Have you looked into scrubbers? I set mine up a few weeks ago and it has already started to grow GHA on it, so hoping the scrubber will out compete my display
Good luck to you also, its a hell of a battle!
Ill be using this in conjunction with GFO (Ive found this stuff to be pretty useless even if I change it every two days), skimming, macro algae, and I think most importantly a algae turf scrubber. Have you looked into scrubbers? I set mine up a few weeks ago and it has already started to grow GHA on it, so hoping the scrubber will out compete my display
Good luck to you also, its a hell of a battle!
brandon429
Active member
Glad it worked did you catch any pics before and after?
One nice thing about peroxide is it can be used just once if preferred, as a cheat, and then these perfect water management systems can be relied on to prevent the recurrence of algae if thats indeed possible. just a nice cheat to start over if continual use isn't wanted.
Nice job Kafuda I can see the green in your hazy pic and its absence in the follow up!
With all these tanks running gfo who have algae, or that alternate generations of invaders (changing out algae for dinos who aren't affected by gfo use) its all the proof I need to see that algae control is not water quality first. Too many tanks had great water quality and still took on invader X
What we lacked all these years was an effective manual removal mechanism that actually kills biomass instead of fragging it around (manual scrubbing)
Algae will always be present in the systems it seems like a moot point to expect total compliance from it. That being said, for some reason the algae does not grow back as fast when peroxide is the backup and we don't know why, we are just watching pics evolve proof after proof across forums and trying to figure out how this works post facto...
Some guesses I have are:
-actually killing the biomass rather than dispersing it stops regenerative/reproductive cycles. if the parent colony dies, what's there to reproduce?
it leaves the tank clean and again open to airborne infestation of algae spores (perpetual in all tanks) or hitchhiking again on substrates as we import animals and corals into the tank. But this is a slow process...from sporulation up to fruiting bodies where you can interrupt it at first sign through any number of methods.
-regardless of the method used, tiny amounts of peroxide typically make it into the system. this could be acting like a systemic algaecide, or its taking action on weaker components of the algae depending on life cycle as compared to a spindly mass of fragments much harder to kill when its matured and part of these photographs we are seeing.
additionally, here's a thread on livingreefs as they discovered peroxide. not as many pics though, someone needs to step in and demand the pixels lol
http://www.livingreefs.com/ive-tried-peroxide-t38044.html
One nice thing about peroxide is it can be used just once if preferred, as a cheat, and then these perfect water management systems can be relied on to prevent the recurrence of algae if thats indeed possible. just a nice cheat to start over if continual use isn't wanted.
Nice job Kafuda I can see the green in your hazy pic and its absence in the follow up!
With all these tanks running gfo who have algae, or that alternate generations of invaders (changing out algae for dinos who aren't affected by gfo use) its all the proof I need to see that algae control is not water quality first. Too many tanks had great water quality and still took on invader X
What we lacked all these years was an effective manual removal mechanism that actually kills biomass instead of fragging it around (manual scrubbing)
Algae will always be present in the systems it seems like a moot point to expect total compliance from it. That being said, for some reason the algae does not grow back as fast when peroxide is the backup and we don't know why, we are just watching pics evolve proof after proof across forums and trying to figure out how this works post facto...
Some guesses I have are:
-actually killing the biomass rather than dispersing it stops regenerative/reproductive cycles. if the parent colony dies, what's there to reproduce?
it leaves the tank clean and again open to airborne infestation of algae spores (perpetual in all tanks) or hitchhiking again on substrates as we import animals and corals into the tank. But this is a slow process...from sporulation up to fruiting bodies where you can interrupt it at first sign through any number of methods.
-regardless of the method used, tiny amounts of peroxide typically make it into the system. this could be acting like a systemic algaecide, or its taking action on weaker components of the algae depending on life cycle as compared to a spindly mass of fragments much harder to kill when its matured and part of these photographs we are seeing.
additionally, here's a thread on livingreefs as they discovered peroxide. not as many pics though, someone needs to step in and demand the pixels lol
http://www.livingreefs.com/ive-tried-peroxide-t38044.html
Last edited:
brandon429
Active member
jim
the size of your tank just might be handy in working with peroxide even though doing emersed treatments isn't as easy
need a full tank shot, curious as to the inverts you have in there and how many are known sensitives to trace peroxide, because not many are. the majority of tank inhabitants by a long shot can tolerate/not notice a tiny amount diluted in 90 gallons
if the pics show nothing obviously susceptible, we've had success in larger tanks with algae on low rock structures doing the trick where you turn off all circulation and take a diabetic syringe with the peroxide 3% in it and inject a small amount, underwater, into the strands/base of the algae. it will dilute and dissipate in your system. Take the spot treatments out over days or weeks to prevent a cumulative effect.
all the algae will die and the tank will look brand new again.
Just that much contact time before dilution still kills it, amazingly. Thats why algae and dinos are on the susceptible list lol no amount can they take~literally about 10 drops put into a syringe and squirted into the base will kill any mound of green hair algae, at least enough to start you over with a new water quality approach.
10 drops into 90 gallons, once every few days as you wipe another spot is a really conservative yet effective approach for sure.
the size of your tank just might be handy in working with peroxide even though doing emersed treatments isn't as easy
need a full tank shot, curious as to the inverts you have in there and how many are known sensitives to trace peroxide, because not many are. the majority of tank inhabitants by a long shot can tolerate/not notice a tiny amount diluted in 90 gallons
if the pics show nothing obviously susceptible, we've had success in larger tanks with algae on low rock structures doing the trick where you turn off all circulation and take a diabetic syringe with the peroxide 3% in it and inject a small amount, underwater, into the strands/base of the algae. it will dilute and dissipate in your system. Take the spot treatments out over days or weeks to prevent a cumulative effect.
all the algae will die and the tank will look brand new again.
Just that much contact time before dilution still kills it, amazingly. Thats why algae and dinos are on the susceptible list lol no amount can they take~literally about 10 drops put into a syringe and squirted into the base will kill any mound of green hair algae, at least enough to start you over with a new water quality approach.
10 drops into 90 gallons, once every few days as you wipe another spot is a really conservative yet effective approach for sure.
SimonSKL
New member
Brandon, the OP on that thread mentioned the dying algae didn't release nitrate and phosphate back into the water. Does it indicate GHA don't need much PO4 and NO3 to grow? I think that further proves keeping PO4 and NO3 extremely low still can't starve off these algae. Other means, like H2O2, is needed to aid removal of this pest.
Jim, I have tried ATS 2 yrs ago without much success. As far as GFO, I have been running 500ml of PO4x4 and regenerated them every 2 weeks yet the algae continued to grow. That stuff and the regen buffer are expensive. I simply can't believe I can get rid of these algae with a $1 product
Jim, I have tried ATS 2 yrs ago without much success. As far as GFO, I have been running 500ml of PO4x4 and regenerated them every 2 weeks yet the algae continued to grow. That stuff and the regen buffer are expensive. I simply can't believe I can get rid of these algae with a $1 product
