What does peroxide break down to in saltwater?

[karimwassef]

I'm assuming it's just water and a hydrogen ion, but I wanted to check.

How quickly does it break down?
Under what conditions?
What does the reaction achieve chemically? Biologically?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Assuming you mean hydrogen peroxide and not other types of peroxide, it breaks down into water and oxygen if it does not react with organic matter and become a part of the product.

I don't know how fast it breaks down in reef tanks.

It modifies organics, for better or worse.

 

[billsreef]

It breaks down into H2O and a free O. That free O doesn't really like being free, so it looks to combine with (aka oxidize) something. Ozone basically achieves the same thing, breaking down into O2 and the reactive O. How quickly can vary, but in general it's a pretty quick reaction when added to a tank.

 

[billsreef]

Write a sentence, go flip the bacon, come back, and look posts before I finish

Merry Christmas Randy :beer:

 

[karimwassef]

Ok. Meant O, not H ion.

So does it add O2? Couple of O find each other?

 

[karimwassef]

I'm assuming this is like nuking the plankton in the tank?

 

[bertoni]

The free oxygen atoms might combine with each other, or combine with organic matter, or possibly with some other ions. It'd take a lot of hydrogen peroxide to kill all the plankton in a tank. I doubt anyone doses that much without killing a lot of animals in the tank.

 

[karimwassef]

I'm using it against dinos and it looks to be doing the job, but slowly. My coral expansion looks great and many of my core fish look good too.

I'm wondering what the downside is to doing this continuously.

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

The downside would be eradicating too many of the smaller lifeforms in the tank, theoretically... (everyone has theories)

But overall peroxide is used for various things. Some use for cheap ozone, some use as an algae preventative, some use as a cheap coral dip.. I myself have had great luck with spot-spraying rocks to kill off a patch of algae. Bryopsis is tougher and requires repeated applications.

I recall a thread on here or trt, a guy did general broadcasting of peroxide in the tank, it did minimal to algae that way. But I recall seeing a label for a peroxide tank in a fish store in the UK in a youtube video, the ml dosed was pretty high and it was like 45% stuff, not the normal walmart peroxide..
Anyways, the guy in the thread did various testing scenarios, the most effective, which I agree, is spot treatments outside of the tank.

There was also another guy in the UK that detailed his experience, ultimately he did no more than 10ml a day, in the tank with the powerheads off for 5 mins, and squirted with a syringe directly onto the bryopsis area, aiming for the roots. This allows the bubble you'll see to stay on the area when there's no water flow.

If I ever add it to the tank, my longspine urchin freaks out for a sec and runs across the tank. Never seems to bother anything in the tank beyond the urchin. And the urchin calms down after 30 seconds.

I find it to be the most effective method for algae cleanup if the need arises. A quick dip of frags in a weak solution will also allow for cleanup of inherited dying frags that are overgrown with algae..

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Any time you think you've stumbled on something simple that only kills bad stuff and not any good stuff, you are probably wrong. :lol:

That's why it can take a billion dollars to find a drug to kill a particular parasite and not the patient.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Write a sentence, go flip the bacon, come back, and look posts before I finish

Merry Christmas Randy :beer:

Merry Christmas, Bill!

 

[karimwassef]

I don't have an algae problem though. I have no phosphates or nitrates but I have dinos. This seems to work and isn't wrecking my corals.

 

[thalidomide]

I don't have an algae problem though. I have no phosphates or nitrates but I have dinos. This seems to work and isn't wrecking my corals.

Whatever mechanism of action is eliminating the algae can also affect the corals, since they are both eukaryotic organisms and are highly unlikely to have unique targets that are distinctly affected by whatever byproducts the h2o2 is making.

Like Big Boss Randy Man has said, pharma spends billions of dollars trying to eliminate pathogens in such a way that will cause minimal damage to us.

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

LOL cmon guys, leave the pharmaceutical analogies at home.

That's not at all correct. Think of the insane side effects of just about every medication out there.

But at least they spent billions of dollars to limit the side effects to strokes or rectal bleeding right?
My mom's been a nurse since I was born and I've never really been impressed with man made pharmaceuticals. To a point sure, but they have to disclose the side effects for a reason. And there's also current drugs out there that do kill people in small percentages. It's allowed as long as the percentage is small.


Merry Christmas btw!

 

[tmz]

Peroxide in tank treatments kills lot's of things seen and unseen. There is a long casualty list including serpent stars, pods of various types, bacteria, some corals, shrimp etc.. I do use it for baths ,dips and out of tank treatments for some algaes particulary red turf algae.

Merry Christmas.

 

[karimwassef]

So hydrogen peroxide, UV , and ozone essentially do similar things. Intriduce oxidizing agents that damage some organics.

Some good, some bad... But it's not a long term pollutant.

 

[thalidomide]

LOL cmon guys, leave the pharmaceutical analogies at home.

That's not at all correct. Think of the insane side effects of just about every medication out there.

But at least they spent billions of dollars to limit the side effects to strokes or rectal bleeding right?
My mom's been a nurse since I was born and I've never really been impressed with man made pharmaceuticals. To a point sure, but they have to disclose the side effects for a reason. And there's also current drugs out there that do kill people in small percentages. It's allowed as long as the percentage is small.


Merry Christmas btw!

What's not correct? You're literally saying the same thing.

"Think of the insane side effects of just about every medication out there."

Think of the side effects the h2o2 will have on the other organisms in OPs tank.

And they spend billions of dollars because all of the R&D falls on them, the pharm company. The FDA just sits back and reviews all the research pharma conducted over a decade. Your last few sentences are largely irrelevant so I won't address those.

 

[karimwassef]

So - are there any documented side effects of H2O2?

I can't tell because I already had a sick tank with severe dinos, dying snails, and dying fish. One is covered in ich now, but others are unaffected. Through it all, no algae, no P, no N.

My coral expansion has never been better even though my water parameters are the same. The day I started dosing, they literally doubled in size (polyp flesh).

I had a very minor spike in ammonia but then again, I had a dozen dead snails and several large dead fish. Even with that, it was cleaned up without water changes. Still no algae, no P, no N.

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

What's not correct? You're literally saying the same thing.

"Think of the insane side effects of just about every medication out there."

Think of the side effects the h2o2 will have on the other organisms in OPs tank.

And they spend billions of dollars because all of the R&D falls on them, the pharm company. The FDA just sits back and reviews all the research pharma conducted over a decade. Your last few sentences are largely irrelevant so I won't address those.

Comparing pharma to aquaria is two entirely different things really. And billions of dollars have not gone into peroxide's effect in sw..

As far as side effects, I would say all I've ever seen are VERY short term, mere seconds in tank, minutes when used as a dip. I've seen monti's take a short dip of a peroxide solution and polyps come out like nothing happened 3-5 mins after introduction back into the tank.

Lol, sorry, I find it funny comparing pharma to saltwater tanks, two entirely different areas of science, one has been very explored but still has crazy side effects, the other, well that's why we're here. The last few sentences are pretty relevant.

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

So - are there any documented side effects of H2O2?

I can't tell because I already had a sick tank with severe dinos, dying snails, and dying fish. One is covered in ich now, but others are unaffected. Through it all, no algae, no P, no N.

My coral expansion has never been better even though my water parameters are the same. The day I started dosing, they literally doubled in size (polyp flesh).

I had a very minor spike in ammonia but then again, I had a dozen dead snails and several large dead fish. Even with that, it was cleaned up without water changes. Still no algae, no P, no N.

When it comes down to it, I think peroxide lasts in our tanks about as long as it lasts on a cut on your finger. (so not at all long; probably less in the tank since there's more things to neutralize it)