brandon429
Active member
by all means spray it thats a great wide coverage area idea. pump away!
pico reef pest algae problem challenge
- Thread starter brandon429
- Start date
martinserrano
New member
Caulerpa Gone!!!with Peroxide Treatment and Yellow Tang
Caulerpa Gone!!!with Peroxide Treatment and Yellow Tang
Brandon Nice from NM, I Stopped by Mr. Aquarium last week in Lubbock I'm looking to get a good clown hosted anemone and partner clown right out of the store. They didn't have one I wanted though. Here is an updated picture of the tank. Just got an Aqualife T5 HO 48" lamp put on two days ago. WOW! What a difference! Before and After.
Caulerpa Gone!!!with Peroxide Treatment and Yellow Tang
Brandon Nice from NM, I Stopped by Mr. Aquarium last week in Lubbock I'm looking to get a good clown hosted anemone and partner clown right out of the store. They didn't have one I wanted though. Here is an updated picture of the tank. Just got an Aqualife T5 HO 48" lamp put on two days ago. WOW! What a difference! Before and After.
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sammyhero2003
New member
brandon429
Active member
Sure deal, this gives us a chance to see reaction times, whether or not its tough on your non target coralline etc. should be right at three days to loss of target algae
Thank you for the pics!! Coralline too, if lightened, will take about four or five days to show but truly if it was my tank I wouldn't care about that in the face of such an adapted invader like bryopsis. This is why I like testing rocks first. I still bet by Monday you see some nice results on the algae.
Thank you for the pics!! Coralline too, if lightened, will take about four or five days to show but truly if it was my tank I wouldn't care about that in the face of such an adapted invader like bryopsis. This is why I like testing rocks first. I still bet by Monday you see some nice results on the algae.
montecarlo97
New member
Would it be ok to pull this frogspawn out and put a drop or two on the small patch of algae growing in it?
brandon429
Active member
Absolutely. I have done it to the small frogspawn I have thanks for posting that nice before pic.peroxide is perfect here because there is no need to starve the whole tank of nutrients just to get at an easy patch.
Catch the frogspawn in the morning when closed. I routinely leave my frogspawn in the air for up to fifteen minutes as I work on my tank, for years, there is no way yours minds one minute when its lifted out in the retracted state. There is a video of me doing this on my youtube page. 35% peroxide in the pico reef.
Hold it right side up out of the tank try not to get peroxide on the polyp cup. Just use a dropper or tiny paint brush, put straight 3% on the algae alone, let sit one minute, rinse off w sw outside the tank and put back in. It may take a full day or three to open and it will be unharmed. Frogspawns are finicky about opening sometimes but they are not weak. They are not directly sensitive to peroxide but its always prudent to spot apply and keep peroxide off nontarget coral polyps, but hit the skeleton all day long its harmless.
Kill time to algae bleaching is 48 hours...fast, if its a new not a used bottle of peroxide.
Pls post follow up pics! This post above is among the many predictable outcomes of peroxide use
b
Catch the frogspawn in the morning when closed. I routinely leave my frogspawn in the air for up to fifteen minutes as I work on my tank, for years, there is no way yours minds one minute when its lifted out in the retracted state. There is a video of me doing this on my youtube page. 35% peroxide in the pico reef.
Hold it right side up out of the tank try not to get peroxide on the polyp cup. Just use a dropper or tiny paint brush, put straight 3% on the algae alone, let sit one minute, rinse off w sw outside the tank and put back in. It may take a full day or three to open and it will be unharmed. Frogspawns are finicky about opening sometimes but they are not weak. They are not directly sensitive to peroxide but its always prudent to spot apply and keep peroxide off nontarget coral polyps, but hit the skeleton all day long its harmless.
Kill time to algae bleaching is 48 hours...fast, if its a new not a used bottle of peroxide.
Pls post follow up pics! This post above is among the many predictable outcomes of peroxide use
b
ShawnMarie
New member
I'm am fairly new to reefing .. Had minor out breaks Pm'd one large area. I purchased all of the 'recommended CUC, along with peppermint shrimp etc. I eventually picked up a emerald crab. He went to town on the large area and wouldn't touch the smaller ones. I put the 3% solution on one area at 7pm. When I looked at the tank thus morning.... Gone!! I will now do the same to rage few other areas.. 
Lastnight
This morning... So great!!
Thank you for sharing ..
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Lastnight
This morning... So great!!
Thank you for sharing ..
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
brandon429
Active member
That's a real nice spot cleaning thank you for the pics nice to meet you!
Hey Brandon, can you direct me to the page about getting rid of bubble algae please? Thanks!
brandon429
Active member
Hi there! I think its between 7-10 iirc
That's one where in tank treatments have been so so. Perhaps thats just too much dilution to do any good. The settings where you can simply lift out infected rocks and externally treat works as good here as with any algae. Initial kill is often great, follow ups needed differ tank to tank. I went through a red valonia phase a few years ago but now that I'm through stocking frags it can't get back in. These days its the brown and green glass growth which is typically scraped out of tanks...I still burn that with 35% for no other reason than to always keep my tank highly dosed for long term resistance/coral health/animal and bacterial loss testing...
That's one where in tank treatments have been so so. Perhaps thats just too much dilution to do any good. The settings where you can simply lift out infected rocks and externally treat works as good here as with any algae. Initial kill is often great, follow ups needed differ tank to tank. I went through a red valonia phase a few years ago but now that I'm through stocking frags it can't get back in. These days its the brown and green glass growth which is typically scraped out of tanks...I still burn that with 35% for no other reason than to always keep my tank highly dosed for long term resistance/coral health/animal and bacterial loss testing...
Ugh, I have many areas where bubble algae is growing in clusters. Tank is 16 mo old with 95% base rock, 5% live rock. Been through diatoms, cyano and an unidentified algae and now valonia. Blargh!
calistyle
Active member
Same here. Got Bubble around month 14, let it build up and then was easier to remove, now at month 16 I have Bryopsis and this is a tough fight.
sammyhero2003
New member
Hi
brandon after 6 day nothing change yesterday night I spray H202 again and wait about 2-3 min after that rinsed it and put it back to the tank in the dark place
brandon after 6 day nothing change yesterday night I spray H202 again and wait about 2-3 min after that rinsed it and put it back to the tank in the dark place
brandon429
Active member
Hi Sammy
Thanks for the update! That would be very atypical...to have no response when using a brand new bottle and an external treatment...was wondering just now how your tank did then I saw your response. At least there was no harm in trying, if it doesn't work we can consider other methods like Margarita snails who, at times, were reported as effective on red algae. Still curious to see after pics, one with a closeup if possible now id really like to see what kind of algae this is
Thanks for the update! That would be very atypical...to have no response when using a brand new bottle and an external treatment...was wondering just now how your tank did then I saw your response. At least there was no harm in trying, if it doesn't work we can consider other methods like Margarita snails who, at times, were reported as effective on red algae. Still curious to see after pics, one with a closeup if possible now id really like to see what kind of algae this is
sammyhero2003
New member
brandon what about using a upper% of H202? in iran i cant find snails that eat the algea and there are so expensive
brandon429
Active member
Oh sure that's a viable option. About the middle of this thread I had reported about using 10x stronger peroxide, 35%, instead of entry level 3% in my pico reef. I would simply apply it the same way, spray on while using protective gloves, rinse and put rocks back in. I've been using this ultra powerful percentage in my tiny one gallon reef for two years now, I don't use 3% anymore as the strong stuff is so much faster
Since we usually get good results here on 3% that's what we've stuck with for the most part.
Since we usually get good results here on 3% that's what we've stuck with for the most part.
Love this thread, it's amazing that more people don't adopt this method judging from the overwhelmingly positive responses.
I've had mild to moderate hair algae issues over the last year and have managed to keep it under control with elbow grease.
I understand this is a tailor-made solution depending on stock, volume, rock layout etc. I haven't read the whole thing ('only' about 20+ pages), so I was hoping you could direct me to a webpage or similar with things like:
-corals / inverts that are particularly sensitive, and whether the treatment should be ruled out completely in certain circumstances
-lists of stock that are known to be resistant to the treatment
-details on how to dip e.g. 3% solution @ 50/50 with SW for 3 minutes. Fully submerged? Would using a turkey baster to repeatedly wash the rock suffice in order to reduce the amount required? -edit just re-read the first post explaining one method, but interested to hear alternatives
-does the treatment kill off beneficial bacteria in LR and / or coralline algae (I read that CA is affected but will bounce back)
Oh and I promise plenty of pics!
I've had mild to moderate hair algae issues over the last year and have managed to keep it under control with elbow grease.
I understand this is a tailor-made solution depending on stock, volume, rock layout etc. I haven't read the whole thing ('only' about 20+ pages), so I was hoping you could direct me to a webpage or similar with things like:
-corals / inverts that are particularly sensitive, and whether the treatment should be ruled out completely in certain circumstances
-lists of stock that are known to be resistant to the treatment
-details on how to dip e.g. 3% solution @ 50/50 with SW for 3 minutes. Fully submerged? Would using a turkey baster to repeatedly wash the rock suffice in order to reduce the amount required? -edit just re-read the first post explaining one method, but interested to hear alternatives
-does the treatment kill off beneficial bacteria in LR and / or coralline algae (I read that CA is affected but will bounce back)
Oh and I promise plenty of pics!
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brandon429
Active member
Hi tone thanks for the kick up!
before we get started Id really really like some update pics from the last two pages
*ahem* lol
we do lots of diagnostic work and then not hear back, its ok that means they liked it lol. any failures get instant updates for sure heh
regarding dipping, we almost never do it if other methods can be had. when the rocks are taken out of the tank you can just apply the peroxide right on the target and not submerge the whole rock which contacts non targets. same with in tank treatments, if any rocks can simply be lifted out and spot treated you will love that method the best. it makes it where peroxide doesnt contact the sensitive animals listed below.
does it kill nitrifying bacteria? depends on what forum you are in. Chem forum says yes I say no the best we have are competing threads to let the reader decide. I feel comfortable in my statement due to the masses of posted outcomes here and on nano reef.com in a similar peroxide thread. There will always be someone in any reef treatment who can show a death or a loss as a result, the best we have imo to exclude statistical outliers and the extenuating reasons they might have gotten such a result is to collect information and pics from the masses to see what we can expect from an average run.
sensitive animals
-lysmata cleaners are worst by far. do not conact with any dilution, QT as needed or do external + rinse treatments that doesnt import peroxide into their contact medium
-anemones like sebae, heteractis can be stressed but we havent lost any I recall
-coralline bleaches but comes back
-xenias have been lost, some have survived
-decorative macro algaes for obvious reasons
post pics!
before we get started Id really really like some update pics from the last two pages
*ahem* lol
we do lots of diagnostic work and then not hear back, its ok that means they liked it lol. any failures get instant updates for sure heh
regarding dipping, we almost never do it if other methods can be had. when the rocks are taken out of the tank you can just apply the peroxide right on the target and not submerge the whole rock which contacts non targets. same with in tank treatments, if any rocks can simply be lifted out and spot treated you will love that method the best. it makes it where peroxide doesnt contact the sensitive animals listed below.
does it kill nitrifying bacteria? depends on what forum you are in. Chem forum says yes I say no the best we have are competing threads to let the reader decide. I feel comfortable in my statement due to the masses of posted outcomes here and on nano reef.com in a similar peroxide thread. There will always be someone in any reef treatment who can show a death or a loss as a result, the best we have imo to exclude statistical outliers and the extenuating reasons they might have gotten such a result is to collect information and pics from the masses to see what we can expect from an average run.
sensitive animals
-lysmata cleaners are worst by far. do not conact with any dilution, QT as needed or do external + rinse treatments that doesnt import peroxide into their contact medium
-anemones like sebae, heteractis can be stressed but we havent lost any I recall
-coralline bleaches but comes back
-xenias have been lost, some have survived
-decorative macro algaes for obvious reasons
post pics!
brandon429
Active member
Should I use peroxide when other more contemporary methods are available?
I guess if they worked as well as we thought they did nobody would be trying our method. Over the course of this and other threads its been made apparent to me we as reefers tend to use preventative methods as removal methods and that could be a problem. consider GFO
excellent for binding phosphate if you balance it well and not overdo to bleach corals. A given amount binds the free phosphate in solution but existing tufts of algae dont immediately disappear when you hook up the reactor. They could be gaining nutrients via holdfasts, that while non absorbative, are anchoring the plant close enough to rock structure that could be liberating stored phosphates via bacterial action so while the water column remains relatively low in concentration, the plant survices. Then we start upping the dosage based on anyones guess to zap the plant, and you can see how problems abound.
one of the most common anti-use arguments is that its a bandaid that doesnt attack the larger problem, nutrient stores. My response to that is twofold. Initially, we may not be dealing with nutrient sensitive invaders as mentioned below, and secondarily everything we do in our tank is a bandaid. A skimmer is a bandaid, the initial waste loading we fail to dilute is the heart of the problem. GFO can't be bought once and last forever, it has to be carefully balanced and repurchased or regenerated, just like peroxide may need retreatments. Nothing in our care method is one off, its all circular, and in that peroxide is just another difference among treatments.
concerned about peroxide as a caustic? Consider the caustic nature of kalk and what happens when its overdosed. spike your pH out to 9...everything we use from iodide to kalk to peroxide needs to be balanced accordingly. there is no particularly special aspect of peroxide that precludes its use as a tank doser even though thats not really popular, yet
consider invaders who dont respond to nutrients. bryopsis, red brush algae, dinoflagellates, bryozoans (rare but some pics are in here of them) and invasive macro algaes. depending on your list of sensitives and size of the tank, it could be a great solution to simply treat the plant or animal itself directly and not the water column indirectly.
instead of making peroxide a fix all, Im more interested in making sound predictions about where it can simply be tried. if it works as well and as long term as it does in my tank, then you w love it. For some, the grow back is too fast to warrant further use and they move on.
I think our track record here for making sound predictions is reliable. 99% of targets treated will do the initial die, then at that point preventative mechanisms may work their intended purpose better. The most fun aspect of this thread is simply eyeballing some pictures to discern safety in trying, for that I give us 100%
valonia in really large tanks hasn't been a home run with peroxide. when they couldnt remove the rocks for external treatment, it just didnt die all that well for underwater treatments. peroxide also didnt work well on the nasty invader neomeris annulata, it simply either didnt phase it or it grew back too fast. we get the most mileage in treating green hair algae, dinoflagellates, red and purple brush algae, invasive macros, unidentified algae that are invasive etc.
no fish has ever been reported as even stressed from the treatments, so thats nice to know. Im sure some are, we just haven't come across any yet in about three years of doing this.
I guess if they worked as well as we thought they did nobody would be trying our method. Over the course of this and other threads its been made apparent to me we as reefers tend to use preventative methods as removal methods and that could be a problem. consider GFO
excellent for binding phosphate if you balance it well and not overdo to bleach corals. A given amount binds the free phosphate in solution but existing tufts of algae dont immediately disappear when you hook up the reactor. They could be gaining nutrients via holdfasts, that while non absorbative, are anchoring the plant close enough to rock structure that could be liberating stored phosphates via bacterial action so while the water column remains relatively low in concentration, the plant survices. Then we start upping the dosage based on anyones guess to zap the plant, and you can see how problems abound.
one of the most common anti-use arguments is that its a bandaid that doesnt attack the larger problem, nutrient stores. My response to that is twofold. Initially, we may not be dealing with nutrient sensitive invaders as mentioned below, and secondarily everything we do in our tank is a bandaid. A skimmer is a bandaid, the initial waste loading we fail to dilute is the heart of the problem. GFO can't be bought once and last forever, it has to be carefully balanced and repurchased or regenerated, just like peroxide may need retreatments. Nothing in our care method is one off, its all circular, and in that peroxide is just another difference among treatments.
concerned about peroxide as a caustic? Consider the caustic nature of kalk and what happens when its overdosed. spike your pH out to 9...everything we use from iodide to kalk to peroxide needs to be balanced accordingly. there is no particularly special aspect of peroxide that precludes its use as a tank doser even though thats not really popular, yet
consider invaders who dont respond to nutrients. bryopsis, red brush algae, dinoflagellates, bryozoans (rare but some pics are in here of them) and invasive macro algaes. depending on your list of sensitives and size of the tank, it could be a great solution to simply treat the plant or animal itself directly and not the water column indirectly.
instead of making peroxide a fix all, Im more interested in making sound predictions about where it can simply be tried. if it works as well and as long term as it does in my tank, then you w love it. For some, the grow back is too fast to warrant further use and they move on.
I think our track record here for making sound predictions is reliable. 99% of targets treated will do the initial die, then at that point preventative mechanisms may work their intended purpose better. The most fun aspect of this thread is simply eyeballing some pictures to discern safety in trying, for that I give us 100%
valonia in really large tanks hasn't been a home run with peroxide. when they couldnt remove the rocks for external treatment, it just didnt die all that well for underwater treatments. peroxide also didnt work well on the nasty invader neomeris annulata, it simply either didnt phase it or it grew back too fast. we get the most mileage in treating green hair algae, dinoflagellates, red and purple brush algae, invasive macros, unidentified algae that are invasive etc.
no fish has ever been reported as even stressed from the treatments, so thats nice to know. Im sure some are, we just haven't come across any yet in about three years of doing this.
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