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Eliminating Algae with Hydrogen Peroxide E-mail
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Written by Giancarlo Podio   

Before talking about Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) I'd like to mention that this is a method I use to clean out a tank after having corrected whatever problems were causing the algae in the first place. This article does not suggest using H2O2 as a long-term solution to algae problems, but a way to effectively clean your tank and equipment after having solved your algae problems.

H2O2 can be used in much the same way as many use bleach to clean their equipment out of the tank. The main advantage H2O2 has over bleach is the fact that you don't need to carefully wash any trace off before placing your equipment back in the tank, a quick rinse will be sufficient. But even more interesting, and the main focal point of this article, is using H2O2 in the tank itself to kill most kinds of algae. I performed the following experiments to test this out:

Spot Treatment
Tank: 55 gallon
Problem: Black Brush Algae (BBA)

First thing was to go to the drug store and purchase some H2O2:

The tank had undergone an increase in lighting and delays were encountered in getting the CO2 system running. As a result, BBA started to grow over driftwood, decorations and some of the slower growing plants such as Anubias. Once the CO2 was installed the BBA stopped spreading but what was there just didn't want to die! I tried a blackout and that didn't work so I decided to nuke it with H2O2.

First thing was obviously to prune all effected plants, I didn't want to treat the plants as pruning would have been more effective and would also promote the plant to grow back new leaves. Then I used an oral medicine syringe to help aim the H2O2 in the right direction, turned my filter off to reduce water movement and prolong the contact time between the effected areas and the H2O2. I then slowly squirted an patch of BBA until I had used 50ml of H2O2 (approx 1ml per gallon of water). I didn't want to use any more than this at this stage. All the plants started pearling like crazy due to the saturated levels of oxygen in the water. After 15-20 minutes I performed my regular weekly water change, around 25% of the water was changed. The filter was turned back on while the new water was added. The BBA bubbled like crazy for the rest of the night, within 24 hours it had turned a pinkish/red color and a couple days later my fish had completely eaten it all up. The following week I simply repeated the entire procedure on the next patch and so forth until all the BBA was eliminated. It took around 3 weeks to do it all and any equipment that could be pulled from the tank was soaked in a bucket with a stronger solution of H2O2, around 10ml per gallon of water.

I did not encounter any problems with my fish, plants or bacterial filter using this amount of H2O2 in the tank. I did not however have any floating plants in this tank so am not able to say if they would have been effected or not. It's also worth noting that this tank had a little thread algae among some of the plants that also disappeared during this period, perhaps due to the H2O2 in the water, not sure. Since then, I often use a couple of drops of H2O2 on my heater and spray bar during water changes to keep them clean but I haven't had any other problems in this tank to have to treat in the same way.

In another tank I used this exact same method to eliminate beard algae from foreground plants, worked like a charm!

Whole Tank Treatment
Tank: 10 gallon
Problem: Thread Algae

More recently I neglected one of my planted fry tanks, due to no water changes for months, no fertilizers and too much lighting this tank became very unhealthy plant wise and full of thread algae. My initial thought was to tear it down and start again, but first I wanted to see what effect a stronger solution of H2O2 than I had tried before would do. I therefore removed some of the thread algae with a tooth brush and left what was attached to the plants. Here is the tank as it looked prior to adding H2O2:

 

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