Hydrogen peroxide question

[Luke Schnabel]

I've been fighting a battle with green turf algae for several months now in my 125g. I've tried all kinds of things to get rid of it. My tangs do not touch the stuff, my cleanup crew doesn't either. About a month ago I put in 3-urchins 3-chitons and a sea hare. I cut back lights, now feed half the food and am running GFO every week. Still this stuff has yet to die or go away. About 2 weeks ago I started to dose 3% hydrogen peroxide at a rate of 2ml per gallon each day. I use the BRS 1.1ml pump and hate that I have to run it for almost 4hrs a day. I was wanting to buy 30% hydrogen peroxide and dilute it to about 9% solution to dose 1/3 of the time. How much h2o2 would I need to use per gallon to get a 9% solution?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If you have a 30% solution of anything and want a 9% solution, you mix 1 part of the 30% solution and 2.33 parts of RO/DI water.

That said, I wouldn't assume hydrogen peroxide is the best way to deal with algae.

 

[CNDReef]

If you can reach the algae use a syringe and hit the algae directly with the 3% and you’ll see it bubbling right away. Don’t use more than you would dosing for your volume

 

[reef4beer]

I had a buddy dealing with the same, he tried everything from dosing, cleaning, and even bought a algae scrubber. No success.

After many trial and errors I told him to just screw it and dip the major rocks covered in the algae in hydrogen peroxide.

I advised him to use a diluted ratio but he decided to do only hydrogen peroxide (not sure the percentage, but bought it from the dollar store) after one major dip (about a minute ) it killed most of it. The remaining small patches were eventually irradicated by the other means initially tried.

 

[Luke Schnabel]

@Randy Holmes-Farley thank you! How else do see getting rid of this turf algae. I've tried so much and nothing seems to be killing it or eating it.
I have tried a little spot treating with 3% and it worked fairly well but did not get everything because I can't reach everything.

 

[CNDReef]

Have you tried Mexican turbo snails?
They usually devour the stuff

 

[Luke Schnabel]

I have not tried turbo snails. I can always get some but I've read elsewhere they won't eat it. It's worth a shot though.
I've fought and beat hair algae, Dino's and cyano but this stuff is a whole different animal. I hope the dosing of h202 will help.

 

[smokin'reefer]

I fought this for while and finally broke down and did a flucanazole treatment. Took care of the problem.

Seems like there was a thread where someone had come up with one specifically made for our reef tanks.

Everyone usually warns "this doesn't take care of the underlying issues," but kept me from losing more corals to this algea. Hopefully giving my tank a chance to find it's balance.

 

[brandon429]

There is a way to beat it using peroxide but it's different than how it's being applied

There's a different way

I bet a couple 70-page threads it w work and can be mini-modeled before you take on the job

Must start with a test rock

We discovered in those long threads that people were using their whole tank as the test bed


Take out a rock that you can access without much fanfare that has a lot of the Target on it

Using kitchen knives score off all the algae and damaged some of the substrate as you do it

AKA parrotfish hawksbill turtle

You then clean off the test Rock outside of the tank with peroxide and let it sit a few minutes


None of this affects the cycle of The Rock

Rinse Rock and put it back in your tank and chart it against the rest of the stuff you're going to do to the top water

caps are due to voice xlate phone

my grandmother used to mow the lawn, but stab out the dandelions with a butter knife. all for good measure I now see in hindsight. the truth is, if you use peroxide correctly you can get off using it.

its the partial use that commands it over and over and over, such oxidizer isn't normal for a reef agreed

 

[brandon429]

Your tank now comes to the classic fork in the road


Do I want the algae gone or do I demand a water only action where I don't have to do any external work

Don't choose before evaluating the test Rock though in my opinion




in my opinion, any action that rids your tank of algae including fluconazole, alternate plant binding via ATS, nutrient sequestration, direct grazing from animals which is how nature handles it, rasping, peroxiding, algaefix marine and associated retail items/Vibrant are all equal ends with a different journey. My only reason for posting here was to arrange peroxide in the right order so that the growback stops or nearly stops after using it. broadcast application to the water for anchored invaders is covered in several pages as unideal in our work threads, handy info to relay imo.




All you needed to do was destroy the holdfast of that particularly anchored invader and peroxide doesn't do that well topically but it's a heck of a cleanup

the rasping method only applies peroxide to the target because its out of tank work

98% of people will not choose the direct action due to work involved, understood. it is the primary mode for all pico reefs we can source out due to outcome (no infestation of anything including dinos, find a dino challenged pico reef online and post it) but that's just a lucky aspect of access to a small aquarium.

If pressed to pick a water only option, it would be fluc but Id choose rasping over fluc if tank access is present because rasping works always. Plants only go so deep into rock

I still get pm's for fluconazole growbacks for sure, and we have them rasp + 35% on target, done.

Rasping will boost fluconazole, rasping should be at the heart of any anchored invader approach per parrots and turtles and urchins et al + dandelions

 

[CNDReef]

I have not tried turbo snails. I can always get some but I've read elsewhere they won't eat it. It's worth a shot though.
I've fought and beat hair algae, Dino's and cyano but this stuff is a whole different animal. I hope the dosing of h202 will help.

They have to be the Mexican turbos, for some reason the others don’t like it( at least for me)

 

[Doclight]

I mixed 1 gallon of 3% hydrogen peroxide with 1 gallon of fresh ro/di water.
Put the rock into the mix for 30 seconds and scrubbed off what I could. Rinse well in second bucket of RO/DI water and returned to tank.

It cleaned A LOT of it off.

Here's the thing, ONLY recommend this if its out of control. Once you get it manageable. Test your water, and fix the problem. Too much algae skews the readings.

Also one you cull it back, I heard Lawnmower blenny's and turbo snails are the way to go.

 

[Luke Schnabel]

Just an update. I’ve been dosing 2ml per gallon of 3% hydrogen peroxide every day. I have about 200 gallons of total water so I’m dosing every hour about 8ml of hydrogen peroxide.
My tank was to the point where I had to remove this turf algae to save a lot of my coral that was getting covered up.
I bought a Naso Tang and the second I put it in the tank it started eating the turf algae.
All of the turf algae is gone now. I’m still dosing 2ml per gallon of hydrogen peroxide because it seems to help everything.