h2o2 as algae remover - Page 2 - Algae

pineapple · 11-14-2004, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Help me try and understand this please, you are dosing this ratio straight to your tank water? No spot treatment?

Yes, dosing it straight into the tank water. Not spot treatment. This dealt with thread algae.

I'm not sure whether H2O2 would be effective in eradicating brush algae.

H2O2 at certain reasonable levels does not harm fish and does not require a clean up (as does bleach solutions).

Andrew Cribb

mudboots · 10-22-2009, 09:25 PM

I dosed the equivalent of 3ml per gallon in a 125 (about a cup and a half), dumped straight into the tank, and lost all algae except some GSA (I'm guessing that's what it is) on some driftwood. A week later I dumped 2 and a quarter cups (better than 4.3ml per gallon) straight in. The algae on the driftwood is still doing fine

. Almost all of my ramshorns and every single pond snail died

. Glad to see the pond snails gone, but hope the ramshorns make a bit of a comeback soon. No harm has been noticed on the plants or to the fish.

I put a hob filter on while doing this to keep the water moving (normally have no filter) and did it when lights were going full blast.

mikslik · 10-23-2009, 06:11 AM

4 ml per gallon will kill pond snails? interesting... surely it would also kill shrimp at this concentration, too? Does it then become inert after a period of time? Or do you have to do water changes to cycle it out?

Mikslik

playthecello · 10-23-2009, 08:27 AM

Resurrected thread to the rescue... I have blue-green algae in my tank (29g) that snuck up on me and got pretty bad. I moved, and did lots of wrong things that could have caused the outbreak (neglecting setting up my diy co2 b/c it was too much trouble, not replacing my clean up cory cats after they died, thinning back my plants but not my fertilizer, letting my light bulbs get too old, etc etc...) but I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until last week when I noticed the plants weren't really growing anymore, and everything looked pretty gross.

I spent 4 hours cleaning the goo off my plants and gravel and everything, but I can't get it all, and what escapes the gravel vac gets caught in my feathery plants. I was thinking I would have to hunt down some Maracyn until this peroxide thread showed up. Peroxide is way easier to come by than erythromycin in my area, but I know the latter is effective and relatively safe. So, what would the people with more experience recommend?

To (partly) answer mikslik's question, hydrogen peroxide 2(H2O2) breaks down into water 2(H2O) and oxygen (O2), but I don't remember exactly what causes it. I know it decomposes spontaneously, but there are catalysts that speed it up (silver, for one). I think I remember hearing that light catalyzes the decomp, which is why it's sold in an opaque bottle, but that could be wrong. (high school chemistry was a while ago)

Tex Gal · 10-23-2009, 08:31 AM

playthecello - you know BGA is a cyanobaceria right?

Here's a link:
http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

playthecello · 10-23-2009, 11:59 AM

Yep, I know that. I was hoping to get it under control without using chemicals or antibiotics, but I'm not sure if that's going to be possible. A lot of the posts I've read recommend Maracyn or other form of Erythromycin to kill it, but then I saw this peroxide thread and wondered if it would work just as well, since it works as a topical antiseptic/antibiotic. It kills nasty things in paper cuts, so why not nasty things in the aquarium?

mudboots · 10-23-2009, 12:56 PM

Regarding the breakdown of h2o2, I recall that light energy is the main catalyst.

Regarding the cyanobacteria, if you try it sure enough let us know how it works. I've not really had much stuff like that to try and kill because two evil outbreaks out baterial disease popped up from "adopting" fish and I had to dose antibiotics, so everything was wiped out.

Mikslik - I'm not sure it'd be nearly as bad for shrimp as it is for snails, but davemonkey and kwc1974 had tried this and I think both of them had shrimp at the time??? I might be mistaken...

playthecello · 10-26-2009, 06:49 AM

I tried the peroxide. I dosed 2ml/gal two days in a row. The algae looks a lot better, but not completely dead, I don't think. If it comes back, I'm going to use Maracyn instead of more h2o2, because while all my fish survived, all of my plants did not.

My anacharis, eurasian watermilfoil and hornwort (all collected locally. coincidence?) are not looking so hot. The anacharis is droopy and wilting, the milfoil is turning brown, and the hornwort is disintegrating. They're all similarly delicate/feathery, but what is surprising is that my other delicate plants (water sprite and rotala wallichii) look fine.

The tip of each plant has a relatively healthy looking spot of new growth, so hopefully I'll just lose the old leaves and not the entire plant.

oakleyhoma · 11-05-2009, 05:19 AM

what effect does peroxide have on animal inhabitants, other than supplying o2?

davemonkey · 11-05-2009, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oakleyhoma

what effect does peroxide have on animal inhabitants, other than supplying o2?

At 2ml/gal, I noticed no symptoms on animals when I tried this as an experiment.
At 3.5 ml/gal I noticed some stress on my snails (almost looked dead, but they pulled out of it later), but no stress on shrimp.

I stopped at that point. I know one person who dosed 4 ml/gal and lost nearly all snails. Still, there was no reported affect on other tank inhabitants.

Still, "peroxide" is not a cure, just another of many treatments to help clear out what's there after you've fixed the issue that lead to algae in the first place.