Should I HP bomb my GHA?

[KleineVampir]

I have the HP. (That stands for hydrogen peroxide!) I got 12% food grade HP and a tank with a ton of GHA. Should I bomb it? It's a 60 gallon system.

I'm mostly worried about my corals. Of course I have some fish, a sea cucumber, a bunch of hermit crabs, and a feather duster. Bomb or no?

 

[KleineVampir]

There's a lot of GHA mixed in with my chaeto. Should I dump some into my sump to blow up all the hair algae on that? And yes I have coral, that is also what I'm worried about. It's like the whole tank is doing fine except for the hair algae. Also worried about the bacteria especially since I got some big old bio blocks in the tank that I want to get seeded.

 

[ScottB]

There are several H2O2 fans around here that will likely chime in with guidance and encouragement. Were it my problem, I'd likely hit it with fluconazole.

 

[KleineVampir]

The other question is, how much do you dose if it's 12% into a 60 gallon system?

 

[Terry Mattson]

What are your tank vitals?

 

[KleineVampir]

What are your tank vitals?

What do you mean by that? The tank is fine. All the inhabitants are better off now then ever since the tank is finally starting to really establish. It's just the GHA.

 

[KleineVampir]

If I don't want to HP bomb it, what are some other options? GFO? Something that can suck my phosphates and/or nitrates out would be nice!

 

[Terry Mattson]

Ok, do you test and measure po4 and p04? You should not use gfo unless you know how much you need to control p04. I had a a lot of gha and did the following? Lowered p04 by using a reactor with gfo. P04 was to high. Maintaining p04 between .03 and .06 ppm. I purchased a h80 refugium light replacing the cheap one I originally put in. Cheato was 4x using the new light. Nitrates are now < 1. I use 220 milipour filter socks and replace them about every 4 days. Skimmer set to dry. Removed as much gha by hand to help export nutrients. Added to tuxedo Urchins. All is good now and in balance. I am using Vibrant as it is reef safe to address bubble algea. But it has helped with algea in general.

Problem with HP is it will kill pods ...
I have a mandarin to feed. I have taken a few rocks out and scrubbed them with HP 3%. It kills it .... but I choose not to use it in the tank.

 

[JoshH]

If I don't want to HP bomb it, what are some other options? GFO? Something that can suck my phosphates and/or nitrates out would be nice!

A strong CUC is a great start. Dosing HP is a delicate thing to do and I wouldn't suggest it for your fuge atall, it will kill everything in your fuge in short order.

If you want to use it in your tank, do it during a water change, turn off your flow pumps and return basically stop all water movement. Typical dosing percentages of HP 3% is 1 ML for every 10 Gallons (I've done up to 5 ML in a 10 Gallon tank). Pick a really bad spot, use a syringe, and slowly squirt the HP over the GHA... let it bubble up for a few minutes, then siphon the dead GHA out while your doing your usual WC. Turn everything back on and you're rocking !

 

[brandon429]

I would not dose the water. just kicked up the peroxide threads for examples of work, you can use that 12% powerfully but its not by dosing water

the specific way to use 12% is this

take out a test rock from your system. clean it of with a knife until all the algae is gone and be rinsing in saltwater to carry it away after dislodging

on the former algae spots, add the 12% direct, out of tank, and let it hit only smaller spots but it will do wonders for burning what your rasping missed.

rinse that off after a minute or so, put rock back and watch it for growback for two weeks before acting on the main tank. dont do anything with peroxide that isnt pre modeled is 2020 use/safe use kills no nontargets.

 

[KleineVampir]

Ok, do you test and measure po4 and p04? You should not use gfo unless you know how much you need to control p04. I had a a lot of gha and did the following? Lowered p04 by using a reactor with gfo. P04 was to high. Maintaining p04 between .03 and .06 ppm. I purchased a h80 refugium light replacing the cheap one I originally put in. Cheato was 4x using the new light. Nitrates are now < 1. I use 220 milipour filter socks and replace them about every 4 days. Skimmer set to dry. Removed as much gha by hand to help export nutrients. Added to tuxedo Urchins. All is good now and in balance. I am using Vibrant as it is reef safe to address bubble algea. But it has helped with algea in general.

Problem with HP is it will kill pods ...
I have a mandarin to feed. I have taken a few rocks out and scrubbed them with HP 3%. It kills it .... but I choose not to use it in the tank.

Sure I've tested in the past and I've never come up with any phosphate or nitrate. And I have a wild guess as to why! (The GHA!)

This is a 0 water change tank, and also my first tank so kind of a double whammy! However, if you have both GHA and phostphates and/or nitrates, then obviously you do water changes and you have weird disjointed effects in your tank as a direct result. Not so with my tank. If I have phosphates and/or nitrates, then it turns into algae immediately and is never detectable. I've dedicated a lot to fighting it (the nuisance algae issues) but none of it has worked. I have a huge fuge with chaeto, a huge light, lots of CUC, switched to feeding less and bloodworms instead of pellets. 8 hour photo period in the display with 16 hour reverse night cycle for the fuge light.

I got the sump put in, which is basically a huge fuge since the whole middle section is where I put the chaeto. However, the flow was too slow to keep the chaeto going...but I just upgraded it today to be twice what it was. The chaeto just grew hair algae since it wasn't doing too well itself. And the display suffered from even more hair algae. So now I'm back on the right track but all that GHA is still there. Who knows if the chaeto can manage to revive itself. Might need to get a hold of more chaeto and try again, but I was thinking maybe the hydrogen peroxide could destroy all the hair algae inside it.

 

[JoshH]

Sure I've tested in the past and I've never come up with any phosphate or nitrate. And I have a wild guess as to why! (The GHA!)

This is a 0 water change tank, and also my first tank so kind of a double whammy! However, if you have both GHA and phostphates and/or nitrates, then obviously you do water changes and you have weird disjointed effects in your tank as a direct result. Not so with my tank. If I have phosphates and/or nitrates, then it turns into algae immediately and is never detectable. I've dedicated a lot to fighting it (the nuisance algae issues) but none of it has worked. I have a huge fuge with chaeto, a huge light, lots of CUC, switched to feeding less and bloodworms instead of pellets. 8 hour photo period in the display with 16 hour reverse night cycle for the fuge light.

I got the sump put in, which is basically a huge fuge since the whole middle section is where I put the chaeto. However, the flow was too slow to keep the chaeto going...but I just upgraded it today to be twice what it was. The chaeto just grew hair algae since it wasn't doing too well itself. And the display suffered from even more hair algae. So now I'm back on the right track but all that GHA is still there. Who knows if the chaeto can manage to revive itself. Might need to get a hold of more chaeto and try again, but I was thinking maybe the hydrogen peroxide could destroy all the hair algae inside it.

The peroxide will definitely help with the GHA in the fuge but it will kill your cheato as well. If you want to skip the water changes, just do half as much, same thing, shut off all pumps and powerheads, squirt around the GHA, leave the flow off for twice the length, around 10-15 minutes, then start things back up again. The extra time should give the HP time to dilute and disappear before circulating through the system.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well it's starting to sound less and less like the plan for me. I was told that HP wouldn't kill chaeto. Then again people say that about vibrant and things like that too. I was thinking about just doing vibrant. Might be easier on the animals. Plus if the chaeto dies who cares? It's probably dead anyways.

How about I get some vibrant, use that for a while, if the chaeto dies I'll throw it out and order some more. Then by the time it shows up I'll have stopped dosing vibrant and I can put the new chaeto in. I just need something to clean up the tank so I can kinda get a fresh start without doing water changes.

 

[JoshH]

Well it's starting to sound less and less like the plan for me. I was told that HP wouldn't kill chaeto. Then again people say that about vibrant and things like that too. I was thinking about just doing vibrant. Might be easier on the animals. Plus if the chaeto dies who cares? It's probably dead anyways.

How about I get some vibrant, use that for a while, if the chaeto dies I'll throw it out and order some more. Then by the time it shows up I'll have stopped dosing vibrant and I can put the new chaeto in. I just need something to clean up the tank so I can kinda get a fresh start without doing water changes.

Honestly at this point, you're stuck doing water changes no matter what you do. As you kill off the GHA you need to remove it and the nutrients from them from your tank as well or your going to just fuel the algae all over again.

Unless you beef up your CUC with GHA eaters, when you kill the GHA with chemicals, all the nutrients bound up in the algae just get released back into the water column

Why the aversion to water changes? It doesn't have to be a permanent thing, or even all that many...

 

[KleineVampir]

Honestly at this point, you're stuck doing water changes no matter what you do. As you kill off the GHA you need to remove it and the nutrients from them from your tank as well or your going to just fuel the algae all over again.

Unless you beef up your CUC with GHA eaters, when you kill the GHA with chemicals, all the nutrients bound up in the algae just get released back into the water column

Why the aversion to water changes? It doesn't have to be a permanent thing, or even all that many...

Yes I'm aware that the nutrients would still be in the tank. Hopefully I could manually remove it to some extent while it comes off. The thing is, the nutrients that were previously bound up in the GHA could conceivably be absorbed by the chaeto instead. Also some of the nitrate could possibly be gassed off by the bio blocks. Also the CUC might have a chance of keeping it at bay if I was able to get rid of it one time.

Well it's a 0 water change experiment. I may be different than most people, in that I want to get it to work with the absolute minimum. It's a learning experience for me. If I did water changes I would be working hard to learn less. I prefer the challenge of trying to eliminate water changes once and for all and learning more in the process.

In my estimation, anybody can make a reef work by spending enough money to make the most elaborate life support system of all time. Then further copping out by changing the water entirely. I'm trying to make it work using just nature. I believe that a lot of what's in the hobby can be replaced by something natural, and cheap. Besides I believe no water changes is the ultimate in stability, which is very important for a reef tank.

 

[JoshH]

Yes I'm aware that the nutrients would still be in the tank. Hopefully I could manually remove it to some extent while it comes off. The thing is, the nutrients that were previously bound up in the GHA could conceivably be absorbed by the chaeto instead. Also some of the nitrate could possibly be gassed off by the bio blocks. Also the CUC might have a chance of keeping it at bay if I was able to get rid of it one time.

Well it's a 0 water change experiment. I may be different than most people, in that I want to get it to work with the absolute minimum. It's a learning experience for me. If I did water changes I would be working hard to learn less. I prefer the challenge of trying to eliminate water changes once and for all and learning more in the process.

In my estimation, anybody can make a reef work by spending enough money to make the most elaborate life support system of all time. Then further copping out by changing the water entirely. I'm trying to make it work using just nature. I believe that a lot of what's in the hobby can be replaced by something natural, and cheap. Besides I believe no water changes is the ultimate in stability, which is very important for a reef tank.

It could conceivably be absorbed by the Cheato if your cheato is healthy and is at the right size to absorb whichever excess nutrients you are putting back into the water. Theres not a calculation out there that I know of to be able to figure that one out though. I don't think the bioblocks will be able to help all that much either, you're limited by your current bacterial population and these usually self regulate to your current levels. So extra won't be consumed for some time until the populations catch up.

I love the no water change concept, and it does work. But in this case I don't think that you should look at a WC as an easy escape or a continuous chore. Look at is as a tool in your belt. Really you would be only looking at 1-3 water changes and that's it. Then it's back to no water changes atall and you can continue on learning and growing as a reefer.

FWIW, water changes are a VERY natural way of combating issues, certainly moreso than the original Hydrogen peroxide route you were planning on taking. All our natural reefs go through a constant WC 24/7 as currents wash over them with fresh water from other areas of the ocean. This takes waste away and replaces it with fresh elements constantly which is what stability is all about

Not trying to poke holes in your reefing philosophy here, but maybe just trying to show you a different side to things

I do think your best bet is to try and beef up the CUC with some known GHA eaters like turbo snails if you truly want to go the natural route and sit back and wait for them to do there thing.

 

[ScottB]

I am a bit puzzled and always ready to learn something new. I am familiar with triton method of managing a system without WC. I am sure there are others. What is your school/method/mentor/theory?

In my experience, tiny, closed biomes are a bit more complicated as input and output impacts are trillions of times more impactful than changes in open systems like our oceans.

Water changes dilute tank pollution and replace elements that are consumed within the tank.

if this is a fish only tank then disregard my post. Have fun!

 

[KleineVampir]

It could conceivably be absorbed by the Cheato if your cheato is healthy and is at the right size to absorb whichever excess nutrients you are putting back into the water. Theres not a calculation out there that I know of to be able to figure that one out though. I don't think the bioblocks will be able to help all that much either, you're limited by your current bacterial population and these usually self regulate to your current levels. So extra won't be consumed for some time until the populations catch up.

I love the no water change concept, and it does work. But in this case I don't think that you should look at a WC as an easy escape or a continuous chore. Look at is as a tool in your belt. Really you would be only looking at 1-3 water changes and that's it. Then it's back to no water changes atall and you can continue on learning and growing as a reefer.

FWIW, water changes are a VERY natural way of combating issues, certainly moreso than the original Hydrogen peroxide route you were planning on taking. All our natural reefs go through a constant WC 24/7 as currents wash over them with fresh water from other areas of the ocean. This takes waste away and replaces it with fresh elements constantly which is what stability is all about

Not trying to poke holes in your reefing philosophy here, but maybe just trying to show you a different side to things

I do think your best bet is to try and beef up the CUC with some known GHA eaters like turbo snails if you truly want to go the natural route and sit back and wait for them to do there thing.

Yeah the h2o2 would have been totally unnatural. Lol. Generally against what I would do but I figured I could either reach in and grab the algae or maybe the HP could do a better job.

Actually, the ocean is not getting water changes. However, it does naturally get skimming action via washing crap up onto the shore. So I guess I should get a skimmer. I dunno if you could count current as a water change! All that happens naturally is that the ocean evaporates water into the air and it ends up in river flowing back in. That is net 0 waste wise.

 

[KleineVampir]

I am a bit puzzled and always ready to learn something new. I am familiar with triton method of managing a system without WC. I am sure there are others. What is your school/method/mentor/theory?

In my experience, tiny, closed biomes are a bit more complicated as input and output impacts are trillions of times more impactful than changes in open systems like our oceans.

Water changes dilute tank pollution and replace elements that are consumed within the tank.

if this is a fish only tank then disregard my post. Have fun!

I don't use the triton method but I am inspired by it. I guess I'm a true minimalist. I'll only buy something if I feel I absolutely have to. The triton method honestly seems more like a money-making racket than anything since they try to railroad you into buying all of their products. Though it probably works pretty well, that said. Still I'm wary of any chicanery! I have to manually add calcium, soda ash, and sometimes magnesium to keep the stony corals happy. Then I put in a trace element mix every now and then. So yes it is the absurdly simplistic shotgun triton method! So far as I know, it's totally successful with the exception of the GHA.

 

[Terry Mattson]

Yeah the h2o2 would have been totally unnatural. Lol. Generally against what I would do but I figured I could either reach in and grab the algae or maybe the HP could do a better job.

Actually, the ocean is not getting water changes. However, it does naturally get skimming action via washing crap up onto the shore. So I guess I should get a skimmer. I dunno if you could count current as a water change! All that happens naturally is that the ocean evaporates water into the air and it ends up in river flowing back in. That is net 0 waste wise.

It is amazing how much accumulating dissolved organic material and bacteria accumulates in our reef systems. Skimmer works very well. You can run them with a dry skin or wet. As vibrant (bacteria) eats the organic crap in the tank it starves the algae. Then the algea breaks down and the skinner helps to remove it from water column. Otherwise it will be food to feed the algea always available in a healthy reef ecosystem.