Reef2Reef Pest algae challenge thread hydrogen peroxide

[Ryengoth]

You've done this every 48 hours for 3 weeks and it's still not completely gone...? Ughhhh

No, I have been testing various mix types and doses and seeing how things react. I nuked my tank once as well with over 200ml of peroxide in the sump. External dosing is best but the gly/perox combo works well for underwater spot treating and also fogging.

 

[VBMike]

Okay, I just spot treated thick spots and let the pumps sit idle for about 15 minutes... we'll see what happens. It was about a 100ml total in a 75g tank with a 40g sump.

 

[VBMike]

Well, a bit more than 24 hours and the results are... meh. There was a good amount of die back, but at this rate it would 6+ treatments to get it all.

There was a clear shock to the coral; their polyps were retracted for several hours. The toadstool is still totally ticked. Everything else looks pretty good now.

If tomorrow night there has been significantly more progress, I might try it again, but otherwise I think I'm done with the in-tank experiments.

I think I have a better game plan... I've got an empty 20L I can move like 4 key rocks into. Freeing up this real estate in the main display will allow me to move rocks around easily, without worrying much about coral getting broken. That will make external treatment MUCH easier and safer. I can run the 20L for a couple months while I play whack-a-mole with HA.

 

[brandon429]

Just as a tiny amplifier don't forget those higher pct doses from any nature health store you can dilute a 35 half over to 17ish and this lowers growback compared to three

Spot treats external not for in tank clearly

Someone may not want to go higher than three and that's ok, but even at 10-17 it's not lethal to sps as accidental contact whole working externally there were times I was putting 35% directly on my sps to stop growth onto glass opaqing everything and it wouldn't work. Would shock the area for a week and then always come back. I'm not mentioning this to affect you pushing sps to all possible boundaries, only that if a single external treatment of 3% isn't sustaining as a test, something needs to amplify as you reaccess the tank a few times to get that algae in the air

It means that if you are driven to increase pct, and still spot treat not on corals but on target, it's better chance at controlled growback vs the original three and that its use at higher pct isn't the buzz saw we'd think for instances like accidental contact as well. It isnt friendly to the contact area, avoid nontargets, but I've never seen rtn with a little... it's been a non issue after a week.


Also don't forget to experiment with direct magnesium addition externally to target as the agent doesn't have to be just p, we have done this before for GHA. Being a core component of select photosynthesis pathways, mg boosting doesn't have to be Kent name brand we got movement using brightwell too. Just brainstorms all for spot testing to give their effects long before you work the whole tank

 

[VBMike]

Thanks.

I believe the 3% is working fine plus it will be more forgiving because I tend to get heavy-handed. Since I can't actually see where I've treated, I have a tendency to treat the same area repeatedly before I return the rock to the tank.

I think my main culprit now is free-float spores settling out and sinking into cracks and crevices. Re-treating will hopefully get to the bottom of it eventually. I also have a (cheapo) UV sterilizer I'm going to set up with the hopes it can kill some spores, also.

 

[Mushroom Boy]

Latest followup to my treatment is that I only did the one treatment with 3% (see page 8). After treatment I added 2 emerald crabs and they have nearly wiped it out in its entirety. 2 turbo grazers added today as well. I'm cautiously optimistic at this point and am crossing my fingers...

 

[brandon429]

can you grab any pics real quick of it mid-correction~

 

[Mushroom Boy]

Sure. I apologize in advance for the crummy pics ...

Before...


About a week after treatment after it appears algae was trying to make a return...


Today...

 

[brandon429]

they are very visible thanks tons that's gold to get any before or after pics. for sure that's what readers want to see, our endless yap is no fun without pics and then it becomes moderately fun lol

 

[Mushroom Boy]

It's more than moderately fun for me , I was about ready to call it quits on this tank, so thank you again!

 

[brandon429]

MB thank you for your contributions someone searching this thread years from now needs this diversity of pics to see before action selection




Look how Twilliard uses peroxide to combat flatworms
http://reef2reef.com/threads/peroxide-and-the-use-against-flatworm.228032/

I don't recall having linked that already should be great material to have as a reference in further use trends.

 

[Ryengoth]

 

[brandon429]

Awesome RyenG-am linking that to nano-reef.com thread

Speaking of, let's see what seabass did to a 100% gha overgrowth situation in a frag tank:
http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/2687...nk-with-pics-to-prove-it/page-63#entry5250571

Profile page
http://www.nano-reef.com/user/3692-seabass/

These pics were before and afters of GHA removal, with heavy hand pruning preceding the good ole peroxide burn to catch the leftovers. some retreats will be needed, and the mass reduction was 99% apparently. seabass always lets me borrow the best before and afters!

how much peroxide plays into the future in this tank, vs GFO or other options, doesn't matter. the initial reduction of mass matters. We should not get lost up comparing immediate helps to long term controls, don't mix the two. If a massive reduction in GHA is good for any tank, then make that happen. Whatever you use long term will have to work less, and your chance of bleaching corals with GFO is far reduced if you aren't using it to clear mass, it is an intended preventer, not a remover. peroxide can be both a preventative and a remover, and its effectiveness ranges among tanks. we are factoring harmless trial runs here, and most will pan out nicely

 

[Ryengoth]

 

[brandon429]

shocking, and people are enjoying your work from the nr.com thread for sure

 

[Ryengoth]

Awesome RyenG-am linking that to nano-reef.com thread

Speaking of, let's see what seabass did to a 100% gha overgrowth situation in a frag tank:
http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/2687...nk-with-pics-to-prove-it/page-63#entry5250571

Profile page
http://www.nano-reef.com/user/3692-seabass/

These pics were before and afters of GHA removal, with heavy hand pruning preceding the good ole peroxide burn to catch the leftovers. some retreats will be needed, and the mass reduction was 99% apparently. seabass always lets me borrow the best before and afters!

how much peroxide plays into the future in this tank, vs GFO or other options, doesn't matter. the initial reduction of mass matters. We should not get lost up comparing immediate helps to long term controls, don't mix the two. If a massive reduction in GHA is good for any tank, then make that happen. Whatever you use long term will have to work less, and your chance of bleaching corals with GFO is far reduced if you aren't using it to clear mass, it is an intended preventer, not a remover. peroxide can be both a preventative and a remover, and its effectiveness ranges among tanks. we are factoring harmless trial runs here, and most will pan out nicely

That's a massive reduction in biomass for sure. The direct dosing really helps to knock it down so the snails, blenny and even the fish will snack on it. When it's down to fuzz you can just spot treat the spots that appear to be greening up. Dipping and external treatment really burns it harder and faster, but it also sinks farther into the rock pores killing everything. The rocks that I dipped in 50/50 RO and 3% have had some GHA grow back, but it wasn't until after the coralline started to come back. I'm keeping my Mg about 1600 and Ca around 520 and it seems to help control that. I already have green algae starting to white-over with a pink outline on my WAV heads and they've barely been in there a month.

Based on my level of initial dosing, though, I managed to eventually lose 3 peppermints and a long-time resident bloodfire shrimp through this entire process of R&D. That's actually better than I expected though! I have added 2 skunk cleaners, a day after that video treatment and they are doing just fine. The acro in the pics has 3 or 4 heads open and feeding as well 2 days after acclimation. They don't really care about the water conditions, though. The red headed zoas are slowly opening up fully as the alk drops. I'm still around 12-12.5dkh/ 225ppm. I'm bubbling O2 in the overflow with and oxygen concentrator and that seems to help the Ph stay up around 7.9. Something is really sucking it down, which makes no sense with a 12dhk and balanced Ca/Mg ions.

 

[brandon429]

Lets position our work, the before and after pics within a week we collect page after page, to the hobby norm of acting only on the water: no matter what you have in your tank, its a nutrient issue. (but I was already running nutrient controls first, you are saying strip more??)
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2555536


watch this thread. see when the OP gets an endpoint to the challenge. we typically never see back from them, its a months long wait

Up until we became allowed to act on algae directly via free info exchange, our options were to never get that actual after shot and merely state that one hasn't traced po4 effectively enough and move on. this comprises the last 20 yrs of permitted algae control in our hobby. At which point in that thread did control over the reef get exerted? Its simply an example of something that exists on all forums, we see algae as only a nutrients issue and in that 45% IMO of easily corrected GHA tanks are simply left out. No one stepped up to be accountable in that thread, these nutrient offers always come from a safety noncommittal angle imo. to me, its more fun to risk an entire tank cycle, but not get one, link here, leave the tank fully reworked, at least within 24 hours of the predicted turnaround date. Failing to follow through with those items will ID snake oil pretty quick.

Im not claiming one way is valid and one isn't always go for nutrient controls right off the bat. *something* had to change in our hobby however, people are simply tired of getting all open ended response times from being constantly told to strip nutrients more, even after they started a tank like that and got GHA


**GHA is perhaps among the most adaptable plants in the world, inhabits all bodies of water, high and low nutrients. If Fiji couldn't produce tonnes and tonnes of GHA to feed grazers in the wild, in perfect waters, we'd lose tons of life. GHA can grow in low nutrient conditions, that's always left out of these commoner cure threads above

 

[Ryengoth]

The more coralline you have the less nutrients are available for other algae. It's a tough battle, but at least peroxide doesn't kill the coralline completely. If you grow green algae in your sump, it won't likely grow in the display since there will not be nutrients there. The tank will manage itself. Whether you like the result or not is dependent on how you configure your nutrient management. I'm learning a lot going through all of these exercises. I'm also spending a ton on water testing!! LOL. I also determined that GFO is not a good thing unless you are growing algae in your sump already and your Po4 are still running high. Even then, it's still only a temporary fix due to the excess iron you'll be dumping into the water column. If you don't have algae growth somewhere, it will be somewhere soon!

 

[Ryengoth]

One thing a friend of mine once told me about the homemade PVC and storage tub bio-filtration on his Koi-breeding pond, "I know it's ready for fish when it's looks absolutely disgusting on the floss and the water is crystal clear."

 

[brandon429]

I concur 100% coralline excludes algae, via allelopathy and also by cutting down on light reflection back up. I wouldn't dare say we fix all GHA issues with peroxide, poster Djbetterly is having quite a hard time with it staying gone, im just saying don't ever rule out direct attack leaving tank nutrients as-is, that was prior disallowed 100% and now we get massive after pics using it. There will always be some persistent algae challenge tanks, acting early on before the full invasion may indeed require direct access, all algae challenge tank owners need to know that acting directly on the algae is most important, nutrients are second and should be designed as long term preventatives, but only in my opinion.
I fully believe someone can hook up an ATS and starve out gfo.

Im just claiming this tank in the example thread isn't going to pull that off any time soon, along with ten thousand other tanks presenting an immediate need for mass reduction.