Hydrogen Peroxide treatment for entire system. Please help!

[dominicOv]

Hello everyone,

I am in the cycling stage of the aquarium and i need your advice before i do anything crazy:

I have added plants to the aquarium and i have done no prior soaking or treatment to get rid of the nasty stuff (bacteria etc.) . Would this be a danger to the discus or there is nothing to worry about? I have bought 3% Hydrogen Peroxide solution and i was thinking of doing a treatment for the whole system (display tank + sump) just to be sure. Is this necessary? :confused:

[brewmaster15]

Are there any fish in the Tank?

al

[dominicOv]

No fish in the tank.

[brewmaster15]

At most you will have added some ich or velvet (oodinium) or other opportunistic parasites, and off course snail eggs. If you are cycling the tank still, how much time do you have until you are ready for fish?

al

[dominicOv]

I have 2 months untill the fishes arrive. It was for this reason i was thinking that even if the treatment will affect the cycle i still have time to prepare everything. I went to the pharmacy today and bought 3 bottles of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide just in case. I just dont want to take any risks especially with these sensitive fish.

[brewmaster15]

I would drain the tank and system and refill... bring the temp up to 86F for a few days.. treat the tank with Hydrogen Peroxide since you have it and let that circulate a few days... re-drain and fill again. Keep the tank dark while treating as hp reacts with light. Its probably way over kill and more for piece of mind than anything else. Drain and fill a few times is probably more than adequate.


al

[brewmaster15]

AS for dosing... its not used much as a pathogen control in the hobby, but probably should be... read here for some ideas..

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?134854-Using-hydrogen-peroxide-to-hatch-discus-eggs&highlight=hydogen+peroxide

[gators111]

You might want to check out potassium permangenate which would be a better oxidizer to kill anything and then use the hydro peroxide as the neutralizer to make sure the PP is out of the system.

[dominicOv]

I was thinking of that as well but i find that the system drain and refill with the Hydrogen Peroxide to be a little bit easier... I will start now with a 250 ml bottle in a 670 liters system, let it run for 2 days then full drain and repeat again one more time. I am hoping that the plants will stay alive during this treatment. Fingers crossed.....

P.S. : Let me know if you think i can add more that 250 ml to the system without losing the plants ... it's the first time i am using this method.

[cooper666]

Far out, that all sounds a bit serious. If you've got months before adding fish, then you should be fine. In theory without a host, pathogens will not survive. 2 months fish less should be heaps of time to rid the tank of anything serious.

Personally i wouldn't mess with it, unless there's something visible that you don't want - snails or other.

Discus don't live in sterile conditions and they are not made of glass. It's good that you are thinking about these things but In this case I would leave it be.

[dominicOv]

I understand what you say but yesterday i already added the Hydrogen Peroxide and put all the lights out. I will drain the tank, refill and start the cycle again.

Would it be wise to buy some basic medicine like anti fungus, anti parasites, just in case?

[Filip]

Plants can ussualy take up to 2-3 mg of 3% H202 per liter for an hour without any problems . H2O2 is very reactive and in a tank with established filters full of BB and good circulation it should loose it's potency in less than an hour.
I always sterilize live plants before introducing to my discus and I ussualy use 5% bleach for 3 min.or very strong PP solution (dark pink - 20-25 ppm) for 4 hours .
I personally don't believe that you can harm any parasite or better yet it's egg cyst with that dose so I think the waiting and WC ing would do more of a prevention than your H2O2 dosing it self .