BBA/Thread/Hair Algae Kill with Hydrogen Peroxide H2O2

[OceanGuppy]

EDIT: ATTENTION: This thread provides a great solution to algae problems in the tank. It has been tried tested & true by many people, including myself extensively, and the consensus is that this is probably the best solution to algae in the aquarium. It is cheap & easy to boot. I have personally battled some nasty algae strains in the past, trying everything recommended. This thread shows you a method that actually works. I strongly recommend that you also acquire some red ramshorn snails to add to your aquarium as your primary algae cleaner (discussed below), and soon you too shall be enjoying pristine looking tanks. Ugly algae problems will be behind you once you finish reading this thread. Tell all your aquarium friends to read this too. Post a link to it on your other fishy forums. Heck stand on the rooftops shouting it out to the world - "Algae Problems Are Easy To Solve!!!"

*********************************************
*********************************************
New people just jumping into this thread. We are conducting a bunch of experiments on using Hydrogen Peroxide to treat tanks with various algae. Please read this entire thread before doing anything to see what we have done, how much Hydrogen Peroxide was used to treat, what are results were, and then make your own judgments accordingly (you are solely responsible for your actions, and how you make use of the information in this thread). Later once we have a bunch of results a post will be made offering our consensus of dosage and treatment methods.

If you have an algae problem please try the methods here in tanks or just on plants you don't care too much about, and post your results here. So far our early results are encouraging, but the more results shared by people the more valid our conclusions will be. Thank you if you choose to participate in this thread.
*********************************************
*********************************************



So far I've been pretty well with algae in my tanks. All of my tanks are No/Low-Tech, and I am very happy with the results.

A while ago I traded plants with someone who gave me some thread algae (cladophora (sp?)). I noticed the strands that looked & felt like thin green horse hair. Contrary to my good judgment I threw it into my tank without an initial bleach or potassium permanganate treatment. Man do I ever regret it now.

I've been reading a bunch of stuff on google about killing algae in a tank and have discovered Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) is claimed by many to be a relatively safe & effective treatment in tank. Being lazy (I didn't feel like tearing down the tank to bleach everything) and cheap (it's seriously cheap) I decided to try it.

I got home late last night and did one treatment, then this morning I did a second larger one. The first treatment I added 1ml per gallon (tank) of 3% H2O2 (the stuff sold at pharmacies), and this morning I added 1.5ml per gallon. In a few days I plan to do another one with 2ml per gallon.

Note that my young guppies & shrimp (oh and let's not forget the snails & otto) were in the tank the whole time of the treatment. They seemed to enjoy it! (Probably because of all the extra oxygen made them happy).

So now I wait a few days to see if the algae melts like it is supposed to. I'll be sure to post an update in a few days once I get a result (whatever that may be).

[GeegaFish]

Sounds like an interesting science experiment you've got going there OceanGuppy! I hope it works and I can't wait to hear the outcome.

[GuppyGal]

I thought green was good? Grows great guppies right? Whats the deal?

[Bianni]

I thought green was good? Grows great guppies right? Whats the deal?

Green water is good, yeah, but not hair algae or black beard algae! Yuck! Hardly anything will eat that stuff.

Please let me know how your experiment goes. I have a bunch of nasty beard algae growing on one of my plants in my 10G and so far all my attempts to remove it by hand have done nothing but rip up the leaves of my plant.

[OceanGuppy]

@ GuppyGal - In the 3 tanks & 1 jar with *INTENTIONAL* green water it is good. Ironically the green water seems to out compete the other algae forms so I don't notice anything else in there really (algae wise). In a display tank, as Bianni replied, the other kinds of algae are bad (I'm not referring to green water, though in a display tank it too is undesirable). If left unchecked leads to an ugly tank and the plants don't like it.

@ Bianni - So far after less than a day I don't *YET* notice much, but the stuff I read people say it takes a few days to see the algae melt. I have noticed that the thread algae appears to have turned slightly gray, and the BBA seems to have slightly thinned, but as of yet it is still to early to report anything.

I will continue checking for the next 3 days to see what happens, and will report my findings here for you & anyone else who cares to know.

I've been feeling tempted to do another dose, but I'll hold off for 3 full days. If I see encouraging results then I will do the full dose suggested (note that I chickened out, doing smaller doses because I didn't know if it would kill my shrimp or fish). As a test I decided to dose another tank containing a bunch of plants and daphnia, to see what would happen (there is some algae in there too). I exceeded the recommended dose of 2ml per gallon (of 3% HP), and the daphnia survived!!! Since the daphnia lived I'm much more confident of doing the full dose in my main display tank, since after all daphnia are the "miner's canary" of water quality testing.

I can't wait for a few days to pass. I'm curious to see the results of these "tests".

[Charlene]

I too am courious about your results!
I would love to be able to control my hair algae in my tanks!

[Bianni]

Frankly, if it helps even a little bit, I might just take out my most affected plant and give it a good rinse in a strong solution of hydrogen peroxide and water. It's got some really hairy looking leaves.

[OceanGuppy]

24 hour results post - The thread algae seems to have taken on a gray hue to their color. They *look* a bit frail now, but am not touching it to see if it'll break or not. It looks like it took a bit of a hit, but still too early to tell. I noticed my hornwort has started dropping a few leaves (which I read others have experienced too). Fish & shrimp all look fine. It is still too early to draw any conclusions, I have to wait another 48 hours to see what happens by the third day.


@ Bianni - That idea occurred to me too. I figure that one could probably put a stronger treatment in a bath not including fish. I'll probably try that on a little plant I don't care much about to see what happens. Maybe the equivalent of 4ml / gallon in a 30 minute bath OUTSIDE the tank NOT including fish. Since all my plants have started being treated this way perhaps you or Charlene or anyone else could try such a bath to see what happens, and post your results. I would be happy to do it, but I don't have any "untreated" plants to have a neutral test subject... um scratch that, I do have a shrimp tank that hasn't been treated... I'll go digging around looking to see if anything has any algae on it there.

[OceanGuppy]

*** Links Post ***
In this post I will paste some links to other sites about this topic. From time to time I will "edit" this post to add more of them.

http://www.gpodio.com/h2o2.asp
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/...-peroxide.html
http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/H2O2
http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/doc...h/hydper.shtml
http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com..._peroxide.html

I have a bunch bookmarked, and later I will return to add more to the above list.

[OceanGuppy]

New experiment - In a tank in my basement that I have plenty of plants but no fish (removed) I'm going to dump in a 1/4 cup of HP. It is a 20 gallon but has approximately 15 gals of water (not full & minus substrate). That dose is about 2 oz for 15 gals of 3% HP (approx 4ml per gallon). Note that this has NO FISH in it (though a couple of MTS are somewhere in there, won't hunt for them). Tomorrow I'll do a 50+% water change and then reintroduce the fish. I will report my results on this tank in a few days.

Note that this is mimicking the same thing others have done (see the link above @ the krib). Apparently they have experienced wonderful results doing this, so the "new experiment" isn't my own idea, I'm just repeating what others have done. My "experiment" is to see if I get similar results.