Sharing amazing algae treatments

[brandon4291]

Team,

I am posting this here because if I would have known it a year ago its what I would have done

peroxide, 3%

its truly amazing, I have been using it as a spot treatment only for a week in my tank and it literally melts green hair algae into a brown smudge in about 8 hours

I drained the tank and spot treated the algae and waited 3 mins, then refilled.



Thanks Farkwar of nr com for such an apropos meme
On nano reef I was partaking in a thread where many people are adding it systemically to their tanks (adding a few ml's right to the water vs my way which is drain the tank, spot treat the algae, refill) some horribly covered in total algae 100%, and in a week the rocks are barren and the tank doesn't look to be the same, thats how effective it is.

We have seen that while systemic additions are simple and totallly effective, it can kill xenia as a side effect and stress but not kill some RBTAs and mushroom corals.

adding it to the tank works for bad infestations, but the right way is to prevent large infestations by good tank husbandry.

This is an opposite system vs the common way of controlling 20 variables in your tank to beat algae, only for it to still come around. Its a specific way of killing algae, without changing much on your tank. I gave up trying to install adsorbtion pads and such to beat algae, now I just kill a tiny spot every once in a while and keep up with my water changes. There is zero chance of algae wrecking my tank

if you are having a headache, try a spot treatment with before and after pics here


B

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting. I've never heard of that before.

What would be a good dose for a 28 gallon with some minor slime algae?

 

[brandon4291]

That will be an experiment...too new for nano reefing circles to know the right systemic dosage. I remember that time you had some pocillopora spawning right, wasn't that in like 2005 man lol? if you still have it, some posters have reported that poc can be sensitive to it

here's DajMasta from nr.com:
I'm almost a week into a full tank treatment - had some GHA that wasn't in awful proportions but had some bryopsis as well. 1mL/10g was way too little - at 1.5mL (I figure it's about 15G after sand and rock in my 24g cube) i got almost no reaction. Around 2.5mL I got the zoas to close for a bit. Eventually upped to 3.5 then 5mL, then started that dosing twice a day.

The last two days I have just poured it in (so probably 15-20mL in a 24g tank twice a day) and am seeing some of the algae turning white and all that (plus a decent amount of bubbles on the rock). I think I will back off the dosage a little though, my SPS are live but had much less polyp extension today - oddly enough the pocillopora seems to be the most pissed off, followed by the acros, and the encrusting montis are least affected. The algae amount is definitely down, but it's not gone, so I'm looking at at least a few more days of treatment.

My fish, shrimp, crabs, and anemone have all been fine with it. I am using a 3% hydrogen peroxide mixture.


You can see its best to undershoot it if you are going to add it to the tank, and work up. this is a fair starting range in an avg nano reef above.

We dont have pics and feedback of people using it on monerans (cyano) vs algae, thats two different kingdoms so this will be interesting to see.
the pic below is a one gallon vase thats years old, its a delicate test subjet. Anything that doesn't burn my one gallon that is teetering on the edge of extinction is kid gloves in the larger tanks, when spot treatments are used. The fact such a small water volume below can take small spot treatments and not lose coral is a helpful scaling model for others wanting a quick solution. This is purely experimental, one is better off preventing algae initially w great tank care.
I highly recommend the spot treatment

 

[brandon4291]

DajMastas post is interesting because he's showing how much a tank can take on the high end. A spot treatment is a *fraction of that amount, its really not a big deal to spot treat a tank it won't hurt anything. if you place about one drop on a colony of gHA when the water is drained, it will spread among the holdfasts and bubble and then it will all die.


It is precisely helpful in cleaning off zoanthid frags covered in bryopsis
zo's don't mind it. they close up, but reopen. I bathed zos in straight 3% for a while and it didn't harm them, but it made the interstices around the mat laser clean again, no manual removal or clean up crew could have done that as well, so thats why i posted. if you have a jacked up zoanthid frag, try this.

take it out, pour 3% peroxide across it, wait 30 seconds then rinse and reinstall, algae will die in a week

In this picture, the arrow shows a patch of bare substrate. a week ago it was covered in red brush algae, the kind that has wrecked many a tank.

you can have the greatest water params on the planet, and if you import that stuff it will fruit on whatever nutrients it can get or make in the aquarium/this is a silver bullet option.


attempt to maintain wastes in your tank ideally, but if you ever start to lose an algae battle at least theres a backup.
I use it as a preventative

 

[Anonymous]

I remember that time you had some pocillopora spawning right, wasn't that in like 2005 man lol? if you still have it, some posters have reported that poc can be sensitive to it

No, that was in my 300G tank. I tore that tank down about 3 years ago when I moved.

 

[brandon4291]

Since the last updates Ive been in contact with about 20 people via email and pms on boards who tried a mixture of specific spot dosing, and systemic tank dosing for max effect. Both are having great results, both acanthastrea, alveopora and several other corals are showing the ability to be spot treated around the corallite base or affixation points to blast algae away, with no affect to the coral because it doesn't touch the flesh.

The systemically-dosed tanks are also showing algae reduction and elimination with some transient irritation to some corals, which are rebounding in a few days but its a rougher looking trip compared to a spot treatment where the corals open right back up because they haven't sat directly in the oxidizer. I am convinced a systemic dosage is last resort, at small diluted doses that last a month vs strong dosing and a haphazard approach.

The posters who either took the frag out of the water and applied some drops of peroxide directly to the algae spots, or treated the frag in another container of diluted full bath, or drained the tank and spot treated, are having consistent 100% no problems. Its extremely repeatable, if anyone wants to test this feel free to its an open invite.

Just wanted to know if you were able to get a try in Louie
B

 

[brandon4291]

How sick is this...

nr poster gave me permission to post this, ReefMiser: this was had by a systemic dosing method. You can see how the coral stocking of the tank was not yet maxed out, so the risk was minimal and with the amount of eutrophication he had it would have taken months to starve it out via adsorbtion pads and water changes

 

[brandon4291]

a few days later he got:

 

[brandon4291]

in the lower left of the pic I like how the red acans are so clean and free of filamentous algae now

 

[Anonymous]

That is amazing, Brandon.

 

[brandon4291]

Reefmiser did us well by starting the thread that I first read with his amazing pictures. Before peroxide burning I was fire burning, it was thoroughly effective and still maybe even preferable to peroxide dosing in any degree because nothing is added to the tank. A quick pulse jet of flame from a windless lighter has removed mushroom coral pedal tissue left on rocks for me, xenia, zoanthids I didn't want near sps, aiptasia, all algaes, valonia etc In my bowls I used it to catch a patch of algae when it was the size of a pencil eraser, thats considered an outbreak to me. It was incorrect to assume burning a light mass of the problem organism would cause tank poisoning, it did not.

Enough can't be said about stopping algae tufts while they are small through any means. Peroxide drops onto the algae are fast and convenient and you can bend the droppers to angle the liquid up into overhangs and places you couldn't get a fire zap, but a fire zap takes a few seconds during a light water change, especially if the algae is up high/easy to get to on the reef.

Here's a vid of how I was keeping red brush algae out of my tank. Its been well known that responding to this algae invasion with animals like crabs and shrimp is nearly always a fruitless venture.


When you first zap red algae its expected to turn black, not so. Its too wet. It goes grey on the tips only and looks unaffected but its nuked. Over three days it peels off like this:

before treatment in video:



sloughing off:



here's a few days later as it pulls off in sheets leaving the substrate clean with no holdfasts:




This is the video showing the burning. Its around delicate hobby glass, so if it can be wielded carefully enough in this tank you guys with the real aquariums should have no problems being careful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hojuv2u5oS4

 

[brandon4291]

Red algae at the base of my snake polyp isaurus which had walked onto the glass: quick pulses of fire left glass unaffected and the algae came off in two days:



In hindsight peroxide drops would have been a better treatment, keep fire away from glass when possible:


the bowl after I got lazy and didn't remove all the bad red algae (could have done it the first time i saw it and saved a two hour laser surgery job)


and after I took time to zap each stand of red brush algae:


the fire tool I use is a bernzomatic windproof, flex neck grill lighter. theres nothing better for snaking into a crevice...After years of following the prevention methods covered in average tank care I abandoned them and just remove the algae. No more will 10 active variables work against my tank to cause algae (which is normal on a reef incidentally) in spite of great water params, it will be gone as soon as its seen. I have to do a spot work every few months, it does not cause more algae growth its the ideal solution, stopping patches while low in biomass.

 

[brandon4291]

No clean up crew member is as thorough, they are optional stocking options in a micro reef

 

[brandon4291]

A tin foil blocking patch was made for the isaurus removal. It was a few folds of foil, with a half moon marble sized cutout along one edge so the algae would stick up through the recessed cut. The bursts of flame could not get to the isaurus flesh so it was unaffected even though the algae was growing on top of it and onto the glass, cosealing it.

The algal holdfasts are anchored to some degree when they nest near corals that take up substrate material into the coenenchymal mass, so when its pulse burned a top layer of flesh will come off the spot, but thats cauterized and not much different insult than a fraggin cut. It clearly didnt hurt mine, it was open the next morning awaiting cyclopeeze. oxidation via peroxide also kills the holdfast, with less impact to the basal mass of the colony.


back to peroxide dosing, my friend .Newman from nano reef picos forum said I could use this example of a spot treatment across zoanthids for green hair algae removal. About three total drops spread across this much algae, when emersed as the tank is drained for a water change, dissolves into the surface water layer sponged by the algae patch, it self distributes all into the patch. There is no need for massive tankwide dosing of peroxide and a risk to corals, even though a large percentage are known to resist peroxide treatment. a few drops allowed to mix into a patch of algae that sits emersed for only about a minute is enough to kill the entire algae colony, with no major changes to your tank husbandry methods.

The current theory says if you get algae you are doing something wrong. Then when you post a tank with some algae growth, and zero nitrates or phosphates (even though the accuracy of such colorimetric tests are subjective) they will tell you the algae are using up all the nutrients, but I think thats the case in 1% of examples. I think in 99% of tanks with a minor problem with green hair algae will register the same nitrates and phoshates regardless of algae in or out of the system, test it. Hair algae never did anything but wreck my tank, it wasn't a helpful nutrient binder.

Also I don't see this peroxide method as better than other methods, its simply an alternate if a total algae free environment is wanted. What SantaMonica does with algae scrubbing I find equally interesting, but in small tanks I found the direct kill method preferable to all others tried so far.

I included an open toppoed shot of my vase as well to show the algae free detail

 

[brandon4291]

more field updates six months into thread:


All commonly kept fish are being tested across several nano and full sized tanks with both full tank dosing and spot treatment dosing. I communicate via pm's and threads on many of the common boards, its absolutely helpful to my cause (a clean reef lasting indefinately producing coral indefinately) to read feedback on peroxide dosing. we try to correlate cause/effect variables as best can be done using repeated treatments of it in large and small nano tanks

Recall that pet stores for years kept gallons of food grade peroxide on hand to dilute and pour into reef tanks when the power went out. it can save a large display fish tank that would otherwise go anoxic very fast...use with fish is probably 50 or more years established with peroxide but I thought it would be helpful to report back as an observer of nano reefs and peroxide.

There are articles on reefbuilders from a few years back mentioning it, but nothing on nano reefs its still very new relatively to this niche of science. someone feel free to start an experiment here if you want proof or would like a quick way to clear a problem area.

So many problem algae threads exist, they are missing out unnecessarily. For the few I can convince in threads to give peroxide a try its always the same outcome - target goes away.


We are finding that lysmata shrimp seem very highly sensitive to peroxide (once again not a problem for spot treatments)
adding peroxide as a tank doser with lysmatas is not advised.

Alternatively, I have accidentally dripped straight 3% on my coral banded shrimp many times and its harmless to stenopus. Several of my pm friends online dose tanks w peroxide that have a cbs with no problems. We've seen lysmata shrimp die quickly from small amounts added

So out of a good 200 tanks now that have tried it lysmata cleaner shrimp and maco algaes arise as the two risks. xenia are the most sensitive corals regarding peroxide use.

try to imagine in as much time how many corals and full tanks have been taken down or smothered/outcompeted by some pest invader
used correctly, peroxide can change the way you keep nano reefs I guarantee it. try it and see, start a thread or post here we'll tune your tank.
Brandon

 

[brandon4291]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... 359&page=8

I just wanted to link a very active thread on the matter, i'm part of several of these across forums. If anyone on rdo would like to get these results above post a before pic here!