Help with dipping rock in H2O2.....

[Mark75]

@brandon429, I am losing an algae battle in my 5 month old SPS 50g. cube and planning on removing rock and dipping in peroxide.

I have the strangest bubble algae out break I have ever seen, 90% the rock is covered in a mat of tiny green bubbles ranging from 1mm-4mm. It did not start in one area, it started on all the rock at once! I also have some long stringy brown algae, diatoms or cyno?

My frags are not mounted and easily removed, except for the ones that have encrusted and I can still get them off. The rockwork is made up of 7 pieces that can be easily removed. Here are a couple of pictures taken a few days ago;

In person and under less blue light the rock is green and covered in bubble algae and recently some form of very fast growing brown stringy/hair like algae. I can clean my glass on within 30 minutes it will have a film of algae on it again, you can literally watch it grow!

Until I researched H2O2 I was planning on making a frag rack to place my corals on a removing all my rock and "cooking" my rock in hydrochloric acid but this seems like a quicker process.

I also have an infestation of digitate hydroids, will the H2o2 kill them also?

Thanks!

 

[joshkirkland83]

The way I got rid of my algae, was take coral off the rock if possible. Take it out, scrub and remove the algae (OUT OF THE TANK). Then pour 3% hydrogen peroxide over the rock. let it work a few minutes then rinse with rodi. Ive been algae free for almost 6mths.

 

[twilliard]

I also have an infestation of digitate hydroids, will the H2o2 kill them also

It may but not a tested method.

 

[brandon429]

(first post of the weekend=verbose)


Agree with two posts above, my hydroids weren't killed by 35% lol I'm stuck with them apparently till future discoveries. But algae, never lol!

Since this is a open scape, accessible, for sure I'd wait on the acid cook because that will work for sure, ours might not, but ours preserves the bio system and coralline such that if it does work you won't take purple awesome rock and have to recure it up from bone white. We all are not sourcing frags from equally clean systems so I really dislike full start overs and prefer to work within constraints of living systems, targeting the hitchhikers we inevitably bring in. After being bryopsis free for 4 yrs I too had to spot treat a few days ago...have been stocking new frags, so that's the cause for both your issues and mine. You might have to do this again after bringing in valonia from future stockings as your tank fills out, it looks sharp already!

Let the record reflect my algae threads don't care about nutrient tests. We care about spot killing that which we brought in, and leaving the tank as it was before we simply brought in the wrath lol

If nutrients are bad, your corals will show it, we see algae as matters of import not long term nutrients -unless- the whole tank is blanketed in GHA - in that case get out the GFO but it's not the case here.


3% is how we start, but it's weak. Imagine if i went in to the dr for burgeoning flu symptoms and he said he wants to start with a fractional dose of tamiflu just to see if it works vs the full schedule...if it didn't work, one could easily just try the full dose.
That's how 3% is, if your test area grow back is bad consider the 15% and 35% work because few algae can deal with that level and even the 35% still preserves your bio system. I have YouTube videos of me putting 35% in my living pico reef, your 50 has better dilution factors X 50 but 3% indeed may be well enough, just pointing alternatives.
Health food stores have the 35 in the refrigerated section for use as a bath additive. It requires eye protection for sure to prevent splatters and bubble pops in our eye. 35% would be for external spot treating your tank not for dosing the water but keep strong doses in back pocket if 3 won't work.

Dips are ok but I would save that for round two as well...first go would be just spot cleaning and treating outside the tank. would like to try and preserve the coralline and benthics if possible. A dip in straight 3% won't kill your nitrifiers so I wouldn't bother diluting 3% I'd just dump it all over *cleaned off areas* of your rock, outside the tank.

That's the key trick, you clean off all that valonia outside the tank, rinse and scrape it away, then you treat the cleaned spots, oppositely of what the masses do. What everyone does is treat the whole mass then watch it bleach, then watch some come back. Trying to reverse that here with this inversion.

I would take your frags and hold them as stated

Take rocks out, massive scrape and cleaning run in the sink, use saltwater to rinse them off and they appear clean now because you scraped them, but we know bits are still there to regenerate. Attack with oxidizer at this point.

Of course you know about mithrax crabs and valonia. Or algae turf scrubbers that are claimed to cure every invasion known, or grazing fish, all can be considered if peroxide doesn't work. Peroxide will for sure bleach out and kill your targets, but we don't know if the grow back comes fast until we try. It's worth a try

 

[twilliard]

Thank you Brandon!
Fenbendazole is key to digitate hydroids.
Another whole different issue

 

[Mark75]

Here is my plan, correct me where needed.

I am going to make 10g of saltwater and half fill a 20g plastic tote. I am going to remove my rocks and place them in the tote. I will lift them out and scrub them and once clean soak them with straight h2o2 allowing the runoff to enter the tote. After I clean and treat each rock I will place them to soak in the tote filled with peroxide and saltwater.

Two questions;
Should I be concerned with the peroxide concentration becoming to strong in the tote?

How many bottles of peroxide should I have on hand?

 

[twilliard]

I wouldnt worry about the tote.
Have enough on hand based on your number and size of rocks.
Wear gloves

 

[j.falk]

Here is my plan, correct me where needed.

I am going to make 10g of saltwater and half fill a 20g plastic tote. I am going to remove my rocks and place them in the tote. I will lift them out and scrub them and once clean soak them with straight h2o2 allowing the runoff to enter the tote. After I clean and treat each rock I will place them to soak in the tote filled with peroxide and saltwater.

Two questions;
Should I be concerned with the peroxide concentration becoming to strong in the tote?

How many bottles of peroxide should I have on hand?

OP: Did your plan with the peroxide work out for you? I'm considering trying something similar to rid my rocks of Lyngbya without completely restarting my tank.

And yes I know this post is from 2016, but the OP may still be around to help me out.