Peroxide calculation

[Cory]

Ive been dosing my tank with 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide to eliminate dinoflagellets, it seems to be working. However im dosing approximately 10 capfuls in 125 gallons. I figured its around 65 ml. What is the concentration of peroxide in my tank? Tank is foggy but fish and sps seem fine. Dinos are bubbling away. Glass cleans itself. Any idea to know per ml of this 35%?

 

[Cory]

Does this seem right?

 

[taricha]

Congrats! That's the highest h2o2 dose I've ever heard of.
1mL / 10 gallons of 3% is a common conservative dose.
You're at 5ml / 10 gallons of 35%, so >50x that common dose.
Would love to read your observations on how it goes. Any chance you could measure ORP?

 

[Doctorgori]

Just adding: Be careful

 

[Cory]

Well not much to say besides no green algae. Glass was brown, but cleaned itself which is nice lol. Dinos are still living on rocks but reduced probablyby 40%. They are not growing much now lol. I dosed another 50 mls today. They started to bubble on the rocks.

I noticed a montipora that had a shaded area receeded a little just in the shaded spot. Gsp closed up but open many hours later. Fish dont seem to mind but are all big fish. Panther grouper, emperor angelfish, yellow tang, and two scopas tangs, and a large orange spot rabbitfish. The skimmer foams a lot more. When i dosed 65mls my panther grouper scratched once on the bottom bb glass. Presumably from irritation.

Overall i want to dose it daily and im gradually reducing the amount to find the sweet spot.

The dinos stink similar to rotting cabbage.

 

[taricha]

The dinos stink similar to rotting cabbage.

That smell is so perplexing. It's often associated with toxic blooms, but I doubt the toxin itself is what we smell. I've wondered if the smell was bacterial associates of the dinos.
That it persists with high oxidizer is also interesting.

 

[Cory]

That smell is so perplexing. It's often associated with toxic blooms, but I doubt the toxin itself is what we smell. I've wondered if the smell was bacterial associates of the dinos.
That it persists with high oxidizer is also interesting.

I actually find it get worse with peroxide. Perhaps under stress they increase their smell.

 

[Dan_P]

That smell is so perplexing. It's often associated with toxic blooms, but I doubt the toxin itself is what we smell. I've wondered if the smell was bacterial associates of the dinos.
That it persists with high oxidizer is also interesting.

Dimethyl sulfide might be what you are smelling which comes from bacterial digestion of dimethylsulfoniopropionate found in phytoplankton which you may be killing with hydrogen peroxide.

 

[vetteguy53081]

.5 ml per 10 gallons
3% solution would be 1ml per 10 gallons

 

[jccaclimber]

Congrats! That's the highest h2o2 dose I've ever heard of.
1mL / 10 gallons of 3% is a common conservative dose.
You're at 5ml / 10 gallons of 35%, so >50x that common dose.
Would love to read your observations on how it goes. Any chance you could measure ORP?

I’ve done between 10 mL/10 gallons for a month up towards 20 mL/10 gallons. During that time. Always pumps off injected into algae pockets at the start, but over bare rocks toward the end. No detriment to euphullia, montipora, an acro (although a slimer), zoas, mushrooms, fish, or CUC. No Apex at the time, so no ORP.
I did this again in a much bigger tank later (with Apex) and found somewhere between 5 and 10 mL/10 gallons, injected into algae through the tank, that my chalices started to die back after a few days, then take a longer period of no dosing to recover. I’ve repeated that in a few systems to the same results. The chalices take it poorly, and everything else is fine.
ORP dips a bit when the H2O2 is added, presumably from stuff that dies off suddenly (there are a couple threads guessing why ORP drops when H2O2 is added), but nothing notable otherwise.

 

[taricha]

Dimethyl sulfide might be what you are smelling which comes from bacterial digestion of dimethylsulfoniopropionate found in phytoplankton which you may be killing with hydrogen peroxide.

If you hunt for discussions of odor associated with dino blooms in published papers, DMSO is indeed what you find.
GAC doesn't seem to knock the smell (or toxins) out as much as we'd expect. Or maybe water toxin is less important than the very local toxins in films and surfaces.

 

[Cory]

The dinos have been completely eliminated from the glass. The glass is clean when it would have a brown coating on it after a day of cleaning. The rock still has some but not as much.

The montipora stopped receeding. However, because of this ive reduced my dose to 8ml of 35% in 125 gallons. Will see if this is effective.

Fish are still normal as usual.

 

[brandon429]

It's important to lower photo intensity levels during treatment/ lessen sunburning

Great thread

Can you post pics

 

[taricha]

I’ve done between 10 mL/10 gallons for a month up towards 20 mL/10 gallons. During that time. Always pumps off injected into algae pockets at the start, but over bare rocks toward the end. No detriment to euphullia, montipora, an acro (although a slimer), zoas, mushrooms, fish, or CUC. No Apex at the time, so no ORP.
I did this again in a much bigger tank later (with Apex) and found somewhere between 5 and 10 mL/10 gallons, injected into algae through the tank, that my chalices started to die back after a few days, then take a longer period of no dosing to recover. I’ve repeated that in a few systems to the same results. The chalices take it poorly, and everything else is fine.
ORP dips a bit when the H2O2 is added, presumably from stuff that dies off suddenly (there are a couple threads guessing why ORP drops when H2O2 is added), but nothing notable otherwise.

While doing this high level of h2o2, ignoring the short term ORP drop, what was your ORP (approximately) during this process?

 

[jccaclimber]

While doing this high level of h2o2, ignoring the short term ORP drop, what was your ORP (approximately) during this process?

If I remember correctly that tank's ORP ran in the mid 200's. I don't remember any notable change (other than the 0-1 hour dip) over a couple weeks of moderate peroxide dosing, and maybe a week of the higher dosing.
I do wish I'd done a water change before tearing down to see what that did as I've seen ORP rises doing water changes on tanks that haven't had one in a long time, but I didn't want to do a 200 gallon water change on a mild curiosity at the time.

I've done similar dosing in a few other systems and not seen much, if any, of a long term change, be it systems that run in the high 300's or low 200's. I don't have a good explanation for this, other than the system quickly re-absorbing whatever is killed off.
That would make the case that while the H2O2 is going to selectively kill a few organisms, it isn't making a large scale change until it starts to wreck havoc. Perhaps the organisms that fill the void created are similar in their impact on ORP to the ones removed?

 

[taricha]

Perhaps the organisms that fill the void created are similar in their impact on ORP to the ones removed?

Thanks! I'd expect the orp won't reflect anything about the organisms present, but it might tell you something about the forms of some elements which could plausibly have an effect on what grows well. Maybe not.

I was interested in what a consistent fairly high dose of h202 did to orp, and it seems that even these doses do not move ORP upwards in the same way that ozone does.

 

[Cory]

It's important to lower photo intensity levels during treatment/ lessen sunburning

Great thread

Can you post pics

I found the opposite, areas of my montipora that are shaded were the areas that receded a little.

 

[Texas Rick]

Congrats! That's the highest h2o2 dose I've ever heard of.
1mL / 10 gallons of 3% is a common conservative dose.
You're at 5ml / 10 gallons of 35%, so >50x that common dose.
Would love to read your observations on how it goes. Any chance you could measure ORP?

So basically it’s ok to dose hydrogen peroxide at a rate of 1ml per 10 gallons into the tank?

 

[jccaclimber]

So basically it’s ok to dose hydrogen peroxide at a rate of 1ml per 10 gallons into the tank?

In general, yes.

 

[Cory]

Ill update this thread so people understand. Peroxide temporarily gets rid of dinos. They always came back. What got rid of them was a big uv sterilizer. I started with a small one and liked the results and then got a big one lifegard.