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Hope not just another H2O2 question.

J

Jose

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9 Oct 2014
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Location
Salisbury
Hi everyone.

I was just wondering.....
In a high tech tank....we are doing weekly water changes to lower the organic matter and whichever substance is being produced by the plants and fish right?. Couldnt we use H2O2 to oxidize these substances and be able to skip water changes to some point. I know this is not going to remove nitrates or phosphates etc but its been shown that these inorganic ferts arent that bad for fish in medium concentrations. So... when we add hydrogen peroxyde to our algae inffected tanks and it gets better, maybe what we are actually doing is lowering the organic buildup of the tank for the long run.

When we do this we must also make sure we have a good mature filter that can take care of the ammonia produced of course.

So....what do you guys think? Could H2O2 in the right concentration be acting like a water change if organic residue is considered.

I am asking this because I have been quite lazy lately and not done a water change in my high tech (high light +Co2) nano for two months. Water is crystal clear and 0 algae is present. I have dosed H2O2 a few times without fish or shrimp problems.
 
Jose said:
we are doing weekly water changes to lower the organic matter and whichever substance is being produced by the plants and fish right?.
Click to expand...
Yes 50% water changes to lower organics, but also to prevent build up of excess fertilisers not consumed by the plants. So I suspect the H2O2 idea is a no goer. A better way to remove organics would be a protein skimmer, but it would do nothing to remove excess fertilisers which would quickly build up.
 
Fertilisers dont have to build up necessarily. You can test with a calibrated test kit and dose as needed. I would only test for nitrates and phosphates and dose the rest of fertilizers based on this result. I know test kits are not very accurate but if you calibrate them they should be good enough for the purpose.
By the way it seems a protein skimmer in a FW tank does basically nothing because foam formation in fresh water doesent happen to the degree wanted.
 
Jose said:
You can test with a calibrated test kit and dose as needed
Click to expand...
Calibration isn't the issue, if you mix x grams of say potassium nitrate in y grams of distilled water, your test kit, even the cheap ones will read correct ppm. Been there done and my Tetra test strips correctly read the nitrate level. Problem is tank water isn't distilled water, there are other things, organics acids for one that will influence the test kits readings giving a wrong value. The wet titration test kits are better, but still are influenced by other salts/organics in the water.
 
I did read that increasing PO4 to 2-3 ppm can help get rid of GSA on Anubis leaves. I just ordered a PO4 test kit for this thinking ahead that if I keep my PO4 at 2-3ppm I won't get GSA... What do,you think of these tests kits its the API PO4 one. Probably just wasted a tenner but didn't know how else to test if my PO4 is at a good level.
 
Not the ferts building up. Everyone seems to be very afraid over here about ferts building up. If you dose full EI and then go a back on your ferts little by Little until you see an impact, then you know more or less your tanks conssumption and you can dose pretty close to it. So that part of the story is solved.

So......H2O2 could be used on a regular basis at the right dose to lower organics in an aquarium? I am afraid no one has tested this out as it might be too scary for most.

If dosed right H2O2 wont kill your filter bacteria and most of it will be gone in 5 minutes.
 
It's a risk for sure. I have heard of many killing shrimp and fish trying this to get rid of nuisance algae. What's wrong with the water changes? Or setting up a trickle system as above?
 
Bhu said:
Probably just wasted a tenner but didn't know how else to test if my PO4 is at a good level.
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Yep wasted a tenner. Someone here did some tests with PO4 test kit and tested tank water and tested tank water left in a cup for 24 hours and got different result. Probably CO2 dissipating, maybe.

Easiest way to obtain known PO4 level if you really believe it will cure your algae is to dose each week say to 4ppm after water change, next week 50% water dose back to 4%. Job done dosed 0% to 4% no test kit involved.

Better to not get algae in first place rather than guess at some way of fixing it.
 
Bhu said:
What's wrong with the water changes?
Click to expand...
Totally agree, WC are great for removing organics, reduce ferts levels if you are worried about it, clean equipment, remove algae from glass, thin some plants, and plants and fish love it... There are plenty of benefits. Actually whenever I am able, I do change the water of my tanks twice a week.

Jordi
 
I was just trying to bring up an alternative method. Yes wáter changes work and are great. But maybe in 15 or 20 years time there might be an alternative way to the weekly 50% wáter change or maybe not.
People killing their lifestock are most probably overdosing because they want to kill the algae once its already there. But H2O2 can be used to prevent it in the same way of a wáter change, or a UV filter, or the twinstar(I think) can by burning organis and not only by killing whats already there.
I will have a more in depth look at the soechting oxydators but it looks like a slow releaser of H2O2 at first sight. This might take out a bit of the risk of the H2O2 since it breaks down quite fast. Most probably its the peak concentrations that are the most harmfull.
 
The Oxydator uses H2O2 to release oxygen, which dissolves in the tank water, with pure water as a by-product. H2O2 doesn't get released into the tank.
 
I remember some where about H2O2 doser's used in big public aquariums and the fact that they have fallen out of favour. Main issue was that they went wrong, both failure due to H2O2 attacking the mechanics or operator error. They either failed to dose or more commonly overdosed killing everything in the tank. Virtually all other chemicals added to tanks are never toxic in overdose situations, obviously not good but at least don't kill everything.

Also they can no longer obtain concentrated H2O2 (12% is now the maximum by law unless licensed) so have to use weaker solutions which are expensive in food/lab grade. There were handling safety issues with H2O2 as well. Most H2O2 at say boots has stabilisers in and is meant for hair dying and is no good in an aquarium.
 
You could always try ozone in a reactor. I used one for my reef; within the protein skimmer, to take the yellow colour off the water. Works a treat in burning up the oraganics. But again it's not without risks. A friend of mine tried the same and killed all his fish! Also O3 that escapes into the atmosphere is not good for people in thr room when in excess... Has to be used wisely.
 
I does very strong h202 once or twice per week. And I keep a close eye on water quality (in the way of tds). i don't think dosing h202 fries the nasty organics I'm afraid. tds still creeps up over the week and i still have to do a wc.
 
Thanks for the feedback everyone. Very interesting indeed.

Then for smaller aquaria those oxydators seem well worth it. They might not release H2O2 but they must be releasing reactive oxygen so as to be able to oxydize organic matter. And yet they pose little danger. Saw, in one of the links, they are used in seahorse breeding tanks...I would expect those to be pretty sensitive right.

TDS doesnt discern between organics and inorganics. If you burn up organics they dont just disappear but they are transformed into ammonia,simpler phosphate molecules etc so they are still contributing to the TDS reading. So yeah its not a cure-all thing.

Yes it might be quite expensive fo bigger aquariums, but what about more standard sizes? For the bigger ones there is also the option of ozone reactors like Bhu suggested or UV lamps I would expect.
 
Bhu said:
I did read that increasing PO4 to 2-3 ppm can help get rid of GSA on Anubis leaves. I just ordered a PO4 test kit for this thinking ahead that if I keep my PO4 at 2-3ppm I won't get GSA... What do,you think of these tests kits its the API PO4 one. Probably just wasted a tenner but didn't know how else to test if my PO4 is at a good level.
Click to expand...

Easy life have brought out a brilliant potassium and phosphate test kit. I've used both in little test pots and readings are spot on
 
I routinely use 35% peroxide in my pico reef to clean it up once every few months, things have adapted its going on 5 yrs now

put a full quart through it~

we can have food grade 35% here in the states my tanks use that strength carefully


its very dangerous. .. can blind, use eye protection and gloves

sure does chainsaw organics heh and it kills any algae I apply it to


strangely, I have some corals that are now immune to direct, extended contact out of water. it defies logic, I have it on video on my tube page.

peroxide causes reproduction not loss in corallimorph corals
eyUrryKTj
 
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