A dino experiment- Pics now on 1st post!

[Sherita]

No, not the large reptiles that used to inhabit our earth (THAT would be a real problem in our tanks, LOL), but rather the brown slimy aggravation that seems to pop up after we do any major changes. My 30g shroom tank is fighting dinos. I moved it from one room to the other recently, and that's what set this off. I have tried lights out, massive water changes, carbon, purigen and have been skimming very wet. This tank is NOT fed, as it is a fish free system. On another forum I have read with interest the successes folks have had treating this brown scourge using hydrogen peroxide dosed daily until the dinos are gone. So, with nothing to lose (besides the brown garbage), I am giving it a shot.I dosed for the first time yesterday, 1ml/10g of volume. I estimated my tank/sump water volume at 35g, and bumped the dose up to 4ml. I didn't take a picture yesterday, but my rocks, substrate, glass and some shrooms were just covered in the nasty stuff. This morning, when the lights came on, I have to admit I was pretty surprised. The dinos are reduced by at least half. I can see white substrate for the first time in weeks, my shrooms are all puffed out and happy, not one mad one in the bunch. So far, I am pretty impressed. The next dose is this afternoon, and I will continue to update this thread as I treat, whether the results are good or bad.I routinely use H202 as a dip on new corals coming in, to make sure no nuisance algae makes it into my system, but this is the first time I have used it for dinos. If this works, I will be absolutely thrilled. I am sick of brown garbage in my tank
.Day One
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Day Two
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Day Three - WOW!
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Day Four (actually cleaner than day three, danged white balance got me again :P)
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FTS
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The frogspawn and the digi that I added to the tank for this experiment are happy campers, no ill effects seen so far. The emerald crab, strawberry crab, snails and Chalk Bass don't seem to be affected either. I have NOT retouched these photos in any way other than to crop them to the same area for the photo each day. I am really, really, really impressed with this :applause:

[hobogato]

definitely will be following this one! i wonder if it would be safe for fish?

[Sherita]

Reference thread

H202 for Dinos (http://www.reef2reef.com/forums/reef-discussion/52084-dinoflagellates-my-experience-h2o2-reefing-tool.html)

Ace, there are several folks on that thread that had tanks loaded with fish, no harm to the fishes at all! The biggest thing was to remember to reduce your light cycle, because the H202 increases water clarity, and corals can burn due to the increased clarity. H202 increases redox, so if anything your fish will do great because of it. I have seen no harm to my inverts..this tank has astrea and turbo snails, hermits, one little urchin and one lettuce nudi. They appear to be totally unaffected by it.

[Big_Pun]

definitely will be following this one! i wonder if it would be safe for fish?

and sps

[Sherita]

Chris, if this works on the 30g, I am going to experiment with an ugly brown digi I have, to see how it responds to this treatment. Matter of fact, I think I will just put it in this tank, along with a little head of frogspawn. That way I can see how everyone deals with it.

I have dipped sps before, using a 70% tank water/30% hydrogen peroxide mixture, the only one that got mad was a yellow scroll, he didn't die, just stayed mad for about a week. The acros and millies I dipped got upset at being handled, but within an hour had huge polyp extension and have done just fine with it. YMMV, but I have had really good luck. Since they tolerate the 70/30 mixture, I expect to see no negative effects at all from 1ml/10g of water, but I will keep everyone updated.

H202 dips are the only thing I have found that will kill teh dreaded bryopsis, so I use it on all new frags before they move into my system.

[rrasco]

Posting for sub.

I have some red/brown slime that was going away after I added a phosphate removing pad, but it seems to be rebounding so I added another pad. Hopefully it keeps it in check. If not, I will have to look into this.

[Sherita]

I'm going to get the camera out in a bit and document this treatment in photos. Mainly because I look at my tanks all the time, and I can track what happens easier that way. Will post the pics on here for everyone else to follow. I moved the chalk bass from qt into the 30g a little while ago, so I will post on what he does too. He just had breakfast, seems pretty happy to be out of the barren glass box.

[Sherita]

ok, I need help with these pictures. My old laptop died and took photoshop with it. I can't find my disk and I am trying to crop and resize using Paint. Do. Not. Like.

Anyone willing to take these pics and resize them? MS Paint won the battle, I give up.

[Sherita]

Edited this post, all photos now on first post.

[justahobby]

Hydrogen Peroxide has earned a spot next to my other aquarium essentials like vinegar. Great stuff.

Are you applying the peroxide directly to the infected areas? If not, H2o2 quickly breaks down into oxygen and water so target application should be a faster, more effective method.

theaquariumwiki.com/Hydrogen_peroxide

[Sherita]

Justin, I have done spot treatments in the past for nuisance algae. Since the thread I referenced was involving a whole tank dose and treatment, I thought I would give it a try just to see what the results might be. One never knows about these things until you give it a shot.

I know how quickly H202 breaks down, but SOMETHING was working for the folks in that thread, and I want to see if I can recreate it :)

Curiosity, the cat, and all that.........

[justahobby]

Tank treatments would certainly be easier! Are you leaving the lights off during treatment? That might help prolong the effectiveness since it breaks down in light too (why the come in brown bottles).

[rrasco]

Tank treatments would certainly be easier! Are you leaving the lights off during treatment? That might help prolong the effectiveness since it breaks down in light too (why the come in brown bottles).

Just like beer!

[justahobby]

Haha, Cheers!

[Sherita]

I have only actinics running (mh shut down), and a shortened light cycle, but no, I still have lighting on the tank.

I might go to lights out if I am not getting results, but right now I am pretty happy with what I see. The rocks are clear of the nasty stuff, it's coming off the glass in thin sheets. Skimmer is going bonkers right now with all the garbage it's pulling out.

All corals are still happy and poofed up.

[justahobby]

That's awesome. I'm glad you posted your results for us. I've heard reports of it being effective for cyano too. Maybe someone with cyano can do an experiment next.

[rrasco]

I can try it on cyano if my tank doesn't clear up all the way. Anybody with shrimp tried this? I'd presume it would be okay if the corals made it.

[alton]

Thanks for posting this Sherita, it is amazing what we can do with HP from fixing blood poison to algae. Maybe TPWD needs to buy a bunch and dump it in the middle of the red tide out break?

[Sherita]

I would need to go back through the thread I referenced, but I am almost positive that at least one person on there had peps and coral bandeds and had no trouble with the treatment.

I just put the second dose in the tank. New pic tomorrow.


I can try it on cyano if my tank doesn't clear up all the way. Anybody with shrimp tried this? I'd presume it would be okay if the corals made it.

[kkiel02]

I know you tried Purigen from the first post and maybe I missed it but have you tried phosban or a generic product? That is supposed to remove phosphates, of course, but also silicates which dinos need as well. I have had very good luck with that. Maybe purigen does this as well but I thought I would throw it out there.

I actually just bought a bunch of BRS generic product to take out some hair algae, I have been trying to go natural on this one but the turf scrubber isn't big enough...

[Sherita]

Kevin, tried it with no success. I have already been through all the "tried and true" remedies, no luck.

However, so far, this looks to be working. This evening just before lights out, I could see even more improvement. So far, I am a happy camper. New pic tomorrow.

[Sherita]

Bump, day two photo on post #9

I see improvement :)

[Sherita]

Ok guys, wait until you see the photo for today.

Let's just say, I am a believer in this stuff! Unfreakingreal.

Photo to come as soon as the main lights come on.

[Sherita]

Bump, new pic added to first post :)

[rrasco]

Wow. That's impressive. What's the consensus, is this just good for dino or will it work on other algae as well?

[Mr Cob]

Wow. That's impressive. What's the consensus, is this just good for dino or will it work on other algae as well?


good question...seems I'm always fighting some sort of nuisance algae with the business tanks due to ordering new coral

[Sherita]

I'm going to see what it does on cyano next. Then I am going to set up a 10g with some rocks that have algae on them and see what happens. Might as well check everything I can, right :nerd:

[StevenSeas]

I spoke with one of my professors today who does research on HABs (harmful algal blooms) in lake and river systems. I mentioned how people have been treating different types of algae with hydrogen peroxide and were noticing die off of the algae. After the weird look that he gave me, he talked to me about how they have used hydrogen peroxide in order to basically sterilize stuff. He didnt have a direct reason as to why this worked (of course he said it was something I should research....) However, he said the only potential problems from a treatment such as this was killing off the nitrosomas and nitrobacter species in the tanks. However with the high power lighting that we utilize this problem is mitigated as the light makes it become H2 and O2.

So in short this shouldn't be a problem to any of our livestock as long as you dose it with lights on I guess. Also as a potential mitigation to the loss of the beneficial bacteria you might want to add a bacterial product such as Microbacter7. Im glad we could finally have a way to kill off algae without utilizing harsh chemicals. Definitely encouraging results you are getting Sherita

[justahobby]

If applying a frag in the standard 3% concentrate bacteria, inverted, etc die off and the rock will be bleached white. In lesser concentrations (50% dillution) inverts may still die, but rock and bacteria seem to be ok. Obviously when dosing a tank the dillution is much, much great. Using peroxide for algae is nothing new though. Barley straw thrown into an infested pond will have the same results as it breaks down and forms H2O2.

[alton]

Thanks for posting, nice change. What is funny I grew up with a bottle of peroxide. Get a cut dose with peroxide, if it burns it is infected, if not you are good to go. My kids use it religiously.

[rrasco]

I've always treated open wounds with peroxide; hurts much less that isopropyl alcohol.

I'm specifically curious if this would have any affect on bubble or hair algae.

[Sherita]

rrasco, we are going to find out. I am going to boldly go where no MAASTard has gone before :bigsmile:

Once I get done with this experiment, I am going to set up my 10g and use the same dose to treat some rocks I have with hair algae. I can't do anything about bubble algae, since I have none to experiment with (thank goodness!!).

[justahobby]

Day three looks amazing!

I experimented with bubble algae a while back by injecting with a very thin needle and was unsuccessful.

[Bill S]

Cyano is not algae, it's bacterial. I tried it on my fw tank, without much luck. I does it with chemiclean. Works great.

[rrasco]

If chemiclean works on bacteria....does it effect your bio bacteria?

[Europhyllia]

dinos are awesome for pods by the way. I can see it being crucial to get rid of them if there's an outbreak in an existing tank (I killed off stuff before with thick layers of dinos after removing some rocks) but I hope people don't get carried away with it and start using it on newly cycled tanks because they would really miss out on something IMO

[Sherita]

Karin, I agree completely.

In this case, this was an established tank that I moved, and set this off. And they were smothering my corals, so something had to be done about it.

[rrasco]

I was just looking this up to see how much you dosed. I've got some dinos I'm fighting, I've dosed about 10ml for a 130g system without seeing the radical change you did. My fuge was full of dinos though, so maybe it's working on them there because there has been a considerable reduction in there.

At any rate, the reason I was posting is because I found this video on the original thread you linked to on r2r, I thought it was worth sharing here for those that didn't see it. Rather interesting to say the least.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ITUzifk_4

[Flyride95]

I just wanted to bump this post and say thank you so much for making this thread. I had Dino's really bad. I at first was thinking they were another wave of diatoms but then it was like basically brown snot that was over everything. It blow up fast. And not only that but the bubbles in them. Anyway I found this on the site and decided to give it a shot because I was at wits end. And boy let me tell you my tank is perfectly clean with crystal clear water. Thank you so much for this post one more time. I wish it could be pinned so it stays up top.


I dosed 8ml in my system which is 75gallons. 8ml every night when the lights go out (yes I'm weird about h2o2 and sunlight). By day 6 the tank is completely clean. I will continue to dose for 4 more days.

[Richard]

When I treated a tank with an oxidizer to clean it up, I preferred to use potassium permangenate instead of hydrogen peroxide. The thing about oxidizers is that the dosage is different depending on th amount of organics in the water. So with peroxide you are doing a bit of guessing. PP on the other hand gives you a visual cue as to how much to add since it is a purple liquid. So I would add enough to give a slight purplish tint to the water as it oxidizes organics it turns brownish telling you that you need to add a little more. The other nice thing about pp is if you over dose it or livestock is looking too stressed you can neutralize it almost instantly with guess what..hydrogen peroxide.

So if you're in an experimenting mood you can try potasium permangenate. Here's a link to someone treating a pond with pp to give you an idea about the color thing...
http://www.bonniesplants.com/PotassiumPermanganate.html

Just don't treat as long or aggressively as the koi pond people do...reef tank livestock is a little more sensitive than koi & goldfish. Or you could just take the safest method and dose small amounts daily which is the instructions on Kent Marine's Poly-Ox, which is just potassium permangenate.

[Richard]

If chemiclean works on bacteria....does it effect your bio bacteria?

All oxidizers are indiscriminate in what they oxidize so they can all wipe out your bio if overdosed. I'm not sure exactly what oxidizer chemi-clean is...Boyd Enterprises likes to keep that a secret. My guess is that it is just sodium percarbonate in which case it's a great deal for Boyd Enterprises considering you can buy a pound of sodium percarbonate for about $10.