Hydrogen peroxide

[FishyJames]

 I use it during water changes to spray down the algae on glass before wiping it down so any algae is dead if it makes it into the water column.  How many of you use hydrogen peroxide in your tank?  

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by FishyJames

[Marnol D]

I tend to use it for staghorn (I usually remove the infected area from the tank). To much can kill snails I’ve come to realize. Also it seems to much can hurt a cycle (but this is usually way overdosing. I had a tank with some pest snails and no fish so I heavy dosed due to bba and staghorn and the snails got wiped out.). 
 

however if you need a good photo you can add some onto any plant and make it start pearling. 

[Ryan F]

I've tried using it on BBA as it's something that Cory suggested to use in one of his videos. But I have only had sporadic results. Sometimes it'll wipe out a section and other times, no change. I think it's a lot safer algae treatment than bleach baths for affected plants.

[Fish Folk]

We use H2O2 for two purposes: (1) Remove hardscape covered with BBA, and douse it _outside_ the tank with H2O2. When returned to the tank, after a couple of days, it turns rusty-colored and then dies. (2) Instead of using methylene blue to protect against fungus on eggs we pull, we use over-the-counter 3% H2O2. It is a very light amount . . . 1 ml. / 1 gallon . . . every 12 hrs, for 3x times (36 hrs). 

[AdamTill]

Adding a fish to a bucket containing 2ml hydrogen peroxide per gallon for an hour a few days in a row is an old school and very effective treatment for surface issues like cloudy eyes, and even does a decent job with some gill flukes. 
 

I learned that from the African Cichlid world, but used it with goldfish a lot.   

Edited December 17, 2020 by AdamTill

[Tanked]

C19 has made it a little difficult to find some days.  My best results have come from removing and spraying plants and hardscape  outside of the tank.  Second best results came from treating before bedtime.  I stop all of the pumps, spray the submerged plants and turn off the lights. Everything is restored the next morning. 

I can't prove it but Hornwort seems to be sensitive to peroxide and the bleach dip stunned my Anubia.  Peroxide is still my go to product.

[Marnol D]

@Ryan F I have better luck with excel dipping for BBA. 

[umfalcon]

2 hours ago, Marnol D said:

@Ryan F I have better luck with excel dipping for BBA. 

Marnol,

Can you go into detail how you dip plants into excel to deal with BBA? Do you remove the plant from your main tank, dip, and then return?

[Marnol D]

@umfalcon it depends. In my tanks that had shrimps and nails I would remove and place in a bowl then dump excel on them and I would use a baster to keep the dosing the infected areas. In tanks that didn’t have them and had hardier fish I would direct dose with a syringe or turkey baster with heavy amounts. Some people have found that their fish will freak out if they are dosing excel. 
 

now from some plants that grow new leaves quickly I just started pruning instead of running the risk of it spreading. 
 

I think @Brandy was doing easy carbon dips and may be able to give more info on that. 

[Fishmonger_X]

19 hours ago, AdamTill said:

Adding a fish to a bucket containing 2ml hydrogen peroxide per gallon for an hour a few days in a row is an old school and very effective treatment for surface issues like cloudy eyes, and even does a decent job with some gill flukes. 
 

I learned that from the African Cichlid world, but used it with goldfish a lot.   

Do you mean you put the fish in a bucket with the peroxide for just an hour and then put it back in the tank and repeat for a few days?

[AdamTill]

Yep, I make words good sorry 🙂

You don’t really want to use higher concentrations around your filters because peroxide is an oxidizer, and it can knock the bacteria colonies back a little. That’s exactly why we’re using it on the fish in this case.

So I used a 5 gal bucket, 10ml peroxide assuming normal drug store 3%ish solution, and added an air stone. No heater because my goldfish didn’t care,but use one as needed depending on species.

[Brandy]

I tried hydrogen peroxide and it killed moss really well, but everything else in the tank, including the algae seemed fine.

I have since been treating with excel for Staghorn algae. I tried treating the whole tank with a low dose and it seemed to work then rebounded the second I stopped. So I tried spot application underwater and that did very little also. So I took out 50% of the water, and used a syringe to apply to half the problem areas heavily above water and manually removed as much of the rest as I could. I then refilled and did an immediate second 50% water change. My shrimp, fish and snails made it but they were stressed until the second water change, which on a 29g only took a few minutes. The areas I treated have stayed pretty clear, while areas I didn't treat act like they got nuclear powered miracle grow. Going to hit them this week. 

In my case the underlying issue is a large central piece of drifwood that is near to the surface directly under bright lights with slow growing moss and epiphytes only on it. If I can get the val to choke off the light over it that may help. I am considering using electrical tape to black out the leds directly above also.

[Ali]

I had success with fighting BBA with H2O2 dips, and I'm now keeping a bottle in my fish cabinet. I found it to be much gentler on my plants than bleach. My anubias nana & coffeefolia did fine. It worked wonders on my rocks. I did trim back all the plants that were really badly affected rather than trying to salvage those. 

I have also tried to do the spot treating to keep tiny outbreaks from taking over. I have had mixed results. It hasn't caused any harm. I'm just not sure it has been effective on BBA for me. 

I love keeping H2O2 around in case I feel like I need to disinfect anything going from one aquarium to another. I like that it decomposes to water under light, so I feel like it does its job killing microbes without adding anything else to my aquarium.