[Bunnie1978]

Thinking about trying this on the hair algae that came with a plant I got at Petsmart months ago. I've been doing bleach dips, but I've got 12 tanks and that is ALOT of work, only for it come right back because some spore somewhere escaped me. I also move plants around quite a bit, for growout or fry tanks or whatever.

I'm going to test on a 10 that is inhabited by tetras that I won't cry over if I kill them.

I am going to do 3ml/gallon because there seems to be a consensus that is a safe amount?

There really aren't any other serious algae issues anywhere else in my tanks, other than black hair algae (I don't know what it's called) but that is all over.

 

[Tex Gal]

I've been doing 3ml per gallon in my 10g CRS tank. Doing spot treatments. Filter is off for 20 min. Then I do a 2 gal water change. Still see teeny tiny shrimp all over the place. Moss is growing better. Nothing dead.

 

[ree123]

I am so thankful to have found this thread. Very informative reading. I have numerous tanks and have had hair algae, blue/green algae, and the brown tuft cynobacteria algae off and on(more on) for years now. I have wiped it away, siphoned it away, and sometimes even tore down tanks and cleaned with clorox to kill it. Seems all 3 of these keep returning eventually. This has been going on for years in my fishroom. I have just figured that it is present in other tanks and by splashing and water changes and nets, I have been just recontaminating other tanks so it will never go away. I am going to try some experimenting with 3% Peroxide from the drug store shelf and see what results I can come up with. I might even tear down 1 small tank and wash it with the Peroxide and see how long it take for any algaes to return.
Thanks everyone for all the comments and I will be coming back to this thread eventually to comment again on my results.
I have 70 tanks in my fishroom so if this works it will be a blessing. My work in there is never done. ) This would make for less work for sure.
Hey, I am new to this site, but not new to the hobby, and found a thread the other day about T-shirts for this web site forum. Anyone know how I can get one or two of them ? Please p.m. me or e-mail me. Thanks ! Rick

 

[Bunnie1978]

Hi, Rick!! I live in Hermitage, we are close by!! You should get us some pictures of your 70 fishtanks!! That's impressive. Are you a breeder?

 

[ree123]

Hello Bunnie1978. I breed mostly freshwater Angels and sell to some of the LFS's. It has been a hobby for some 45 years now for me. I have some other 4 or 5 types of fish I breed some too. it is and always has been a hobby for me, but making a dollar or two every now and then is nice.
Are you aware of the local club in the process of being formed in our area at present ?

 

[ree123]

I also meant to say, I am still a film camera guy, but one of my teenage sons is now into the digital camera thing & I need to ask him how to take picturs and post them. I have never done that. I reckon I need to find a site on how to do that to learn. I am so computer illeterate. LOL

 

[ree123]

Bunnie1978,
Know how I can get a, or some, T-shirts from this forum that I found the other day on another thread ? If so, your direction would be appreciated.
Thanks, Rick

 

[Francis Xavier]

h202 will kill algae if you spot dose it with a syringe - you'll know it's taking effect because the algae will fizz and bubble, and you should start see plants pearling fairly quickly, since the extra oxygen molecule causes the water to be supersaturated with oxygen.

However, it does have the effect of hurting the plants - it is toxic to them. But using an appropriate dose (a couple mL or so) in an area will kill the algae for you to remove, and send the plants into a melting state (well, I've only done this with HC, so your mileage may vary), but a side effect of this melting is that at least with HC the plant nodes will grow back even -smaller- than they were before, which is excellent for say the appearance of a carpet in a Nano aquarium. I have dosed h202 to do this to HC in my tanks on purpose even when no visible algae is present just to force HC to grow in smaller.

 

[catweazle]

I wrote something about it on my site.

The following link is the google translation from Dutch to English. This means it is broken english, but these are my experiences. Feel free to shoot at it, if you want to read it.

My thoughts

 

[Aquaticz]

I used H202in two tanks that previously had no C02. Once I added the C02 I wanted to globally treat BBA. I used 2 ml per gallon & it made a huge dent in the BBA, to the point where now of having stable CO2 levels...bye ..bye..BBA

 

[f1ea]

I wrote something about it on my site.

The following link is the google translation from Dutch to English. This means it is broken english, but these are my experiences. Feel free to shoot at it, if you want to read it.

Thanks for the link. I read you doc and according to the table you provide, the LC50 (concentration that kills 50% of a given species) of the simplest "animal form" on the list (the mussel) was 5ppm. The LC50 for snails is about 18 ppm. (100% H2O2)

So, for the usual 3% H2O2 solution, i used your calculator for:

1) The absolutely animal safe concentration (target 5ppm)
>> 6 ml per 10 Gal (about 0.6 ml per Gal)

2) The snail safe concentration (target 18 ppm)
>> 22 ml per 10 Gal (about 2.2 ml per Gal)

3) Deadly for algae specimens (target 2.5 ppm)
>> 3 ml per 10 Gal (about 0.3 ml per Gal)

Aquatic plants seem to start getting damage at 34 ppm.

i've read here that many people have dosed up to 2ml/gal, which is about the snail safe concentration... Very consistent with Davemonkey's experience a few pages back. Interesting.

EDIT: Oh, the LC50 for BGA (cyanobacteria) is with a 48hr exposure. And H2O2 has a hlaf-life of 8hrs...
so exposing BGA at 5ppm, for 48 hrs should kill 50% of your BGA. Regular algae had an LC50 with a 72 hrs exposure...

Again, very interesting. Anyone willing to experiment?

 

[catweazle]

My first reaction is keep away from it. Do not use any chemicals. But if you want to use it, gather information. I did read some MSDS. For your convenience here are some URL's, some I mentioned did not exist anymore, but I found some others. I'm always interested in more MSDS's, because it it gives me the capability to expand the table.

Look at the different ecotoxicolological info:

http://msds.fmc.com/msds/100000010225-MSDS_US-E.pdf
http://purehealthsystems.com/h2o2-msds.html
http://www.oltchim.ro/en/uploaded/H2O2_rev6_eng.pdf
http://www.scholarchemistry.com/msds/Hydro_Perox_3pct.pdf
http://agrowingalternative.com/msds.htm

@f1ea,
The LC50 for the mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) is 5ppm during 56 hour. You'll have to take the time in acount, indeed. Algea (without any specs given) has a IC50, 72 hour, 2.5 ppm. The halftime varies from 8 hours to 20 days, but you can asume that in a aquatic environment it won't last 20 days.

By the way, I think a Gal is 3.8 liter. Is that true?

 

[f1ea]

My first reaction is keep away from it. Do not use any chemicals. But if you want to use it, gather information. I did read some MSDS. For your convenience here are some URL's, some I mentioned did not exist anymore, but I found some others. I'm always interested in more MSDS's, because it it gives me the capability to expand the table.

Look at the different ecotoxicolological info:

http://msds.fmc.com/msds/100000010225-MSDS_US-E.pdf
http://purehealthsystems.com/h2o2-msds.html
http://www.oltchim.ro/en/uploaded/H2O2_rev6_eng.pdf
http://www.scholarchemistry.com/msds/Hydro_Perox_3pct.pdf
http://agrowingalternative.com/msds.htm

@f1ea,
The LC50 for the mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) is 5ppm during 56 hour. You'll have to take the time in acount, indeed. Algea (without any specs given) has a IC50, 72 hour, 2.5 ppm. The halftime varies from 8 hours to 20 days, but you can asume that in a aquatic environment it won't last 20 days.

By the way, I think a Gal is 3.8 liter. Is that true?

Yes, 1 US Gal = 3.78 liter

And thanks for the correction, the Algae IC50 (inhibitory) is 2.5 ppm @ 72 hr.
BGA has IC94 of 1.7 ppm @ 48 hr.

There's a LOT of great information in your paper, and it was very well written. Thanks for sharing it.
I wanted to summarize some starting/threshold values as a starting guide...

 

[catweazle]

A lot of it is based on English documents. I just put it all together. Still I have to rewrite it. The focus must be to grow plants and not destroying algea. It is all about balance (even EI I would call a balance), and a aquarium is a complex thing. H2O2 is not the answer. It could help, but it is not an answer.

But let me make you laugh. I spent about one hour on your calculations because I thought they were not correct. I saw 10Gal, and somewhere I thougth 380l. Took me some time to do 10*3.8=38. Rather stupid.

 

[almightydolla]

Inspired by this thread I tried a few experiments in my tanks with h2o2, here's what I found:

tank 1 (5gal nano). I dosed 3ml/gal daily for 4 days. i just dumped it in, no lights off and left the filter running. Clado and hair algae in areas with good water flow melted. Algae deep in the moss was not affected. No noticeable affect on plants (rotala, marseila, blyxa and sygnonanthus and assorted mosses). Riccia melted by day 2. The lone otto cat's underside of his gills turned pretty bright red, but it's behavior did not change. He's back to normal now. Shrimp (RCS and Amano's) seemed fine. The only snails in that tank were those tiny flat spiral shelled ones, whatever they are. There seems to be more of them now.

tank 2 (60gal 4.5wpg co2). Dumped in daily again. With more risky stuff in this one, I decided to try the recommended 2ml/gal approach, and dosed for 4 days. Clado and hair algae in areas with good water flow turned slightly brown and eventually died off. BBA shrugged it's shoulders and carried on. No plants affected (blyxa, copious syngonanthus, tonina, rotala, crypts, swords and mosses). No fish (pygmy corydoras, otto's) or shrimp (RCS, Amano's) seemed affected. Lost a bunch of MTS, but pond snails, ramshorn and those tiny flat shelled ones did not seem very affected.

After the 4 days, I manually removed as much dying algae as I could. The hair algae is completely gone from both tanks, but the clado still resides deep in the moss but has not attempted any sort of comeback. The Amano's quickly take care of any that does crop up.

Tanks 3, 4 & 5 (24, 24 and 12gal) were dosed with a single shot of 2ml/gal starting on day 4. All algae's did not seem affected in the slightest by the single dose. They continue to grow in a mockingly fashion.


h2o2 loses it's potency pretty quick. I could see the difference over the course of 4 days in terms of o2 bubbles produced. If you don't use it up quick once you start opening the bottle, it's strength diminishes. My results might have varied on the single shot if I used it immediately after opening up the bottle.

 

[art_b]

Will 2 ml/gallon treatment affect fine leaf plants like ambulia (Limnophila sessiliflora). I have lots of ambulia on my tank (and hair algae).