Hydrogen Peroxide

ksed · Jan 30, 2016

I am dosing HP to see if I can eradicate either Dinos or Diatoms that has been persistent in my tank. Although stabilizers used in HP has been mention before in previous threads and typically are not of concern, I am going to provide what is listed on the bottle.
Purified Water, Sodium Stannate, Sodium Nitrate, Sodium Pyrophosphate, Methylenephosphoric Acid, Phosphoric Acid (stabilizers).

Sodium Nitrate is a fertilizer and also used in red meat as a preservative, which has taken a lot of heat lately as a possible carcinogen .

Thanks

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 30, 2016

I'd try to find hydrogen peroxide without the tin (the stannate). Tin compounds can be pretty toxic, although I do not know if stannate itself is in seawater.

Your tank already has plenty of nitrate in it, so that's not a concern.

twilliard · Jan 30, 2016

My peroxide lists 3% peroxide and the rest purified water
Is there different compounds produced as "peroxide"?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 30, 2016

twilliard said:
My peroxide lists 3% peroxide and the rest purified water
Is there different compounds produced as "peroxide"?

I presume it is hydrogen peroxide, and little else would be sold to consumers, but there are lots of peroxides.

Wakerider52 · Jan 30, 2016

i had a dino problem not to long ago and i started dosing HP. i started out at first 1 ml / 10 gallons, then slowly uped it to 1 ml / 1 gal. at the end i was dosing 180ml a day. i also did a 3 day blackout the finish the dinos off. i have LPS and clams. fish also. and a few hearty SPS, Birdsnest and plating monti. Everything survived except my shrimp. i had 2 cleaners that didn't make it through the warfare. then later on i found an article the mentioned HP kills shrimp. found it a bit late...

hard and heart breaking lesson learned. but in the end i was able to conquer the battle with the dins and my tank is now doing well and dino free. i kind of wish i took pics of the process and documented, but i really don't want to go through that again.

ksed · Jan 30, 2016

twilliard said:
My peroxide lists 3% peroxide and the rest purified water
Is there different compounds produced as "peroxide"?

Some companies may not list the stabilizers if they are below a certain percentage .

Cory · Jan 30, 2016

I bought food grade h202 30% strength (careful dosing this). You can get it at health food stores.

Fran W · Jan 30, 2016

How do you "dose" the tanks? Just add it the amounts directly to the water?

ksed · Jan 31, 2016

Cory said:
I bought food grade h202 30% strength (careful dosing this). You can get it at health food stores.

Yes I was thinking of going that route. But @ 30% it's giving me second thoughts .

Cory · Jan 31, 2016

ksed said:
Yes I was thinking of going that route. But @ 30% it's giving me second thoughts .

Just dilute it in water for a 3% solution. Im no chemist but i think 1ml of it in 30ish ml of water would be someplace around 3%.

Its very strong. If i get it on my skin it turns white. 2 hours later it comes off.

Ask in the chemistry forum for that dilution. (If needed)

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 1, 2016

Fran W said:
How do you "dose" the tanks? Just add it the amounts directly to the water?

Yes, but I don't recommend it except is certain situations, like bad dino problems.

apex003 · Feb 2, 2016

Randy - Can you share what is known about the longer-term problems that could arise from dosing H2O2? I started dosing it to treat really bad dinos. At one point, I was doing 1ml / gallon TWICE a day. It did the trick on the dinos and I had no major unwanted deaths.

It seems very well tolerated by all my corals (including softies, LPS, and SPS) and large inverts (hermits, trocus snails). The only ill effect I seemed to notice is on the micro inverts. It seems to have knocked out my pods and mysis that were running around the rocks and sand.

I've continued to dose for about the last month at about 1ml / gallon and the tank looks super clear, growth / colors look good, and no obvious ill effects (or nuisance algae). I'm tempted to keep going at 1ml / gallon / day... Is that a bad idea?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 3, 2016

apex003 said:
Randy - Can you share what is known about the longer-term problems that could arise from dosing H2O2? I started dosing it to treat really bad dinos. At one point, I was doing 1ml / gallon TWICE a day. It did the trick on the dinos and I had no major unwanted deaths.

It seems very well tolerated by all my corals (including softies, LPS, and SPS) and large inverts (hermits, trocus snails). The only ill effect I seemed to notice is on the micro inverts. It seems to have knocked out my pods and mysis that were running around the rocks and sand.

I've continued to dose for about the last month at about 1ml / gallon and the tank looks super clear, growth / colors look good, and no obvious ill effects (or nuisance algae). I'm tempted to keep going at 1ml / gallon / day... Is that a bad idea?

The hydrogen peroxide itself should not be a long term issue. It is a fairly short lived chemical in seawater, so I doubt anything important will accumulate from it.

But I would avoid types that listed stabilizers like stannate (tin).

apex003 · Feb 3, 2016

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
The hydrogen peroxide itself should not be a long term issue. It is a fairly short lived chemical in seawater, so I doubt anything important will accumulate from it.

But I would avoid types that listed stabilizers like stannate (tin).

Makes sense. Does all peroxide have stannate as a stabilizer? I buy mine from Costco. For ingredients, it says that it's peroxide (stabilized), but only lists distilled water as an inactive ingredient.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 3, 2016

apex003 said:
Makes sense. Does all peroxide have stannate as a stabilizer? I buy mine from Costco. For ingredients, it says that it's peroxide (stabilized), but only lists distilled water as an inactive ingredient.

I do not know. Unfortunately, it is hard to know what the stabilizers are in some products where they do not list them.

ksed · Feb 3, 2016

I ended up using 35% food grade.
Here is a link that may answer your concerns .
http://h2o2uses.com/hydrogen-peroxide-grades-and-stabilizers

paraletho · Feb 3, 2016

I buy mine from the local Culligan Water people. Who as it just so happens also had contracts to clean and sterilize hospitals. They always have a couple of 55 gal drums of 35% food grade. At 16.00 a gallon its a steal. You can order this online but the shipping is a killer. It is also great for cleaning filter socks. Very clean and no worries of contamination. Dilute 10 to 1 for dosing.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 4, 2016

ksed said:
I ended up using 35% food grade.
Here is a link that may answer your concerns .
http://h2o2uses.com/hydrogen-peroxide-grades-and-stabilizers

I'm not sure what stabilizers are used in typical food grade hydrogen peroxide, but the requirement only seems to be that it has less than 10 ppm tin, which may still add up over time. Dosing 1 mL per gallon of hydrogen peroxide with 5 ppm tin will boost tin by 1.3 ppb with each dose.

See table 2 in this link:

http://www.solvay.us/en/binaries/3424-H2O2ASEPTIC_Pkg-236716.pdf

ksed · Feb 4, 2016

Thanks for that link.
Wow! I thought it would be free from tin. Therefore 3% non food grade HP could potentially have way more?

The other option is to use GFO to remove tin.