Using Peroxide in mixed reef, not so good ending (Photos)

[Go.Fish]

So i had some very small amounts of algae on this zoa covered rock in a 10 gallon tank. Instead of scrubbing between all the polyps and or manual removal i decided to remove the rock from the tank and use a syringe with 50/50 tank water to hydrogen peroxide (3%) in between all of the zoas. I probably used a total of 15ml of peroxide and gave it a really quick rinse with the same syringe and just tank water.
Placed the rock back in the tank and went out for family dinner. Returned 4 hours later to a bit of a disaster

Moral of the story, be careful with peroxide and dont use too much at once. Live and learn

I'm kind of surprised the other 2 chalices on the top left as well as the red acan colony were unaffected...

These are just guesstimates on what i think will survive...
#1 - 40% chance of survival - I ended up finding brown jelly on yesterday and fragged it in 1/2 last night, and placed both halves in different locations, the other half not shown is in poorer condition.
#2 and #3 - 99% sure they will be making a full recovery very shortly.
#4 - 75% chance this will completely recover but take time
#5 - 30% chance it will make a full recovery but could take a couple months
#6 - 10% chance this will survive

 

[Rybren]

That's a nice looking tank. What a shame.

If it were me, I think that I'd be searching for a different cause other than the peroxide. If you rinsed the rock, the amount of residual peroxide would be fairly minimal, I think. Many people dose peroxide to their tanks to rid Cyano. They go from 1ml/gal to 2ml/gal twice a day with no ill effects. So even assuming that you didn't rinse any of the peroxide off, you'd be in that range.

As you know, in such a small volume of water, it doesn't take much to throw things out of whack. It could be the peroxide, contamination on your hands, or something out of kilter. Have you tested your water?

If it were my tank, I'd be running carbon and PolyFilter just in case it wasn't the peroxide.

 

[soulpatch]

yeah highly doubt it is the peroxide.

All of my frags get dipped in bayer then peroxide before entering my tank with zero ill effects. Range of everything from zoas to sps without a single issue.

 

[2smokes]

Its a verry beautifull aquarium.I never had issues with the peroxide when treating algae on LPS and zoas.The zoas must be with the closed polyps before you dip them and there are peroxide solutions in different concentrations from 3 percent to 30 percent .You have to be carefull at the concentration of the peroxide you use because somme solutions are stronger than otthers.Let it for a few seconds on the rock you treat until it starts to boil then rinse it in salt water.You can use a small painting brush to apply the peroxide solution better and to avoid spreading it on the coral for extra safety.

 

[homer1475]

I scrubbed a bunch of my rocks in straight peroxide to rid the rock of calurpa. Let it sit in the peroxide for like 10 minutes, then scrubbed clean, then rinsed in old tank water. My other corals have no ill effect from it.

I don't think its the peroxide causing your issues.

 

[hotelbravo]

I also don't think it is the peroxide I use it very regularly in large amounts no ill affects

 

[Go.Fish]

I hear the support for peroxide, and honestly I would normally agree that it is unlikely the cause of what happened. But I can't think of what else may have happened.
Could it be possible there was something that settled in the bottom of the bottle? It was literally the last 15ml in the bottle. I never shake the bottle befor using if that has anything to do with it? It was opened less than a year ago and has only been used for dipping corals. This won't actually prevent me from using peroxide again in the future, it has several beneficial roles in this hobby. I also have a bottle of 30%+ from a hydroponic store so know about the different strengths.
I've dipped for pests, algae, spot treatment in tank, and even used it on a doser for a short period so i know what it's capable of. Just didn't think it could cause this kind of damage.
Params a few days ago after this happened.
Po4...0.00
Alk...8.0
Cal...350
Mag...1180
So Cal and mag are a bit low but no reason for this to happen

By looking at the first photo and the location of the corals effected it appears whatever caused their issues was coming from that rock.

Another thing to note which I was assuming would be unrelated.... at the same time as this peroxide treatment, I also treated the zoas with a mix of Furan 2 and tank water. Over time having so many zoas on the rock so close together I didn't realze the zoas were starting to rot at the bases from detritus. Which is also why there was a small presence of algae. So this was a 2 step treatment of the rock. Having used Furan a bunch as well it seems more unlikely as the cause than peroxide. Maybe not?

Its also possible that after I put the rock back in the tank, topped it back up water and turned all the flow back on after several minutes I used a turkey baster to blast the zoa rock of any remaining detritus. Maybe something fell off and into the mouths of the LPS?

Update.
As of last night, coral #1 would not stop losing tissue, so it's now officially dead on the counter. The tank is too small to handle the stress. Also corals #2 and 3 were shedding a bit of slime this morning so they got a quick dip in iodine before work. If this continues they will end up being removed from the tank today. And finally, the blue and orange mushroom rock the clowns host is in poor shape, the mushrooms have yet to fully expand since the treatment and are showing signs that they may not recover. Keeping a close eye on them

All I know for almost certain is that if not for doing this treatment that day, the tank and corals would still be happy

 

[soulpatch]

You dont know that for certain. I imagine your zoa and paly on that rock decayed to ththe point that you messing with them released paly toxin into the tank when you put it back in. UIf you had decay like you state then you had a ticking timebomb in there and it was just this instance that it went off. Not the peroxide but you messing with the rock period.

And no the bottom of the bottle would do nothing more then lessen the impact. Peroxide loses potentancy fast when exposed to air so the fact that you had the bottle open for a period of time means that it was even less likely that the peroxide had any impact.

 

[j_mazzy]

if you treated the zoas, did you then do a rinse in clean SW and use carbon in DT with return?

 

[75mixedreef]

I'm thinking that the zoas got stressed and released toxins, or like soulpatch said it was just a ticking time bomb and all it took was you messing with it at all. I do not like zoas at all, they got me really sick once when I tried to acid wash some rocks with peroxide. I would always use carbon after messing with zoas just because you don't know what they are going to do.

 

[Go.Fish]

I don't really know anything for certain as to why exactly this happened.. "ticking time bomb" is a valid quote. Paly toxin...stress...peroxide....Furan...
I don't use carbon but will add a bit after a water change. Just tested for ammonia and NO3 which I never do...
Not sure how to read the colours exactly but looks like 5ppm nitrate and .25ppm ammonia??... I could use a refresher on what this means, lol

 

[Buzz1329]

OP treats algae with HP, rinses it off, and a few hours later suffers horrendous damage to his zoas. And the lock-step response is, well it's definitely not the HP. Are you kidding me? It's just an amazing coincidence that he treats rocks with HP, and zoas on rock suffer devastating damage within a few hours? Right you are if you think you are.

 

[soulpatch]

OP treats algae with HP, rinses it off, and a few hours later suffers horrendous damage to his zoas. And the lock-step response is, well it's definitely not the HP. Are you kidding me? It's just an amazing coincidence that he treats rocks with HP, and zoas on rock suffer devastating damage within a few hours? Right you are if you think you are.

Yes right we are. The problem that even he calls out was the decay in zoas and palys. Peroxide is used by too many on way more delicate things to cause this especially with 3%.

He has ammonia and such in there now. He has die off and it was waiting to happen. Im guessing the exposure by cleaning the rock released much if the decay causing ammonia spike and as such his rapid decay.



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[Buzz1329]

Good luck Peroxide fans. I've had my say and will not be responding further.

OP. Think abut what happened and draw your own conclusions.

Good Luck,

Mike

 

[soulpatch]

Detrious +die off + limited biofilter and no carbon = ammonia spike amd paly release likely.

If you read his further posts you see he also dealt with other concerns with this cleaning.

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