*** The information contained here is only EXPERIMENTAL at the moment. Use at your own risk!!! ***
Disclaimer: I am in no way advocating this as a replacement for prophylactic quarantine or treatment in a hospital tank for active outbreaks. I think the decision to try to manage an outbreak in the display vs going fallow and treating with medication is going to be a personal one. I personally don’t think treatment in a hospital tank is always practical, especially when you have a large tank with large and/or numerous fish.
Important! Continue to run carbon while dosing peroxide. It may break the peroxide down faster, but it is necessary to prevent the buildup of toxic byproducts of oxidation.
Recommended use: Temporarily treating a parasite outbreak in a display tank while a hospital tank is acquired/set up, and fish are captured and moved. This can take the initial panic out of the equation and buy precious time for the fish. We don’t know for sure if this could eventually eliminate a parasite on its own without causing harm to the rest of the inhabitants, so long-term use is risky.
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At the beginning of this year, I was faced with a disease outbreak in my Reefer 525 (~139g system). I believe it was velvet. I’ve dealt with this before in my smaller tanks, and despite treatment with copper or cholorquine phosphate, still lost 8 out of 14 fish (57%). This time around, though, I’m dealing with a much larger tank, with much larger fish (still 14 total), and rockwork that couldn’t be removed to facilitate catching the fish. So I decided to try something somewhat unconventional: treating the velvet outbreak in the display by dosing peroxide.
I fortunately caught the outbreak early – only one fish had spots when I started dosing, and wasn’t showing any of the other outward signs of the disease (flashing, hiding from light, loss of appetite, or swimming in the flow of a powerhead).
- Starting dose: 1mL per 8 gallons (15mL) every 12 hours
- Week 2: increased to 1mL per 8 gallons (15mL) every 8 hours
- Week 4: increased to 1mL per 5 gallons (24mL) every 8 hours, and added overnight dosing (1mL every 15 minutes for 6 hours)
I did wind up increasing the dosing frequency after this to every 3 hours, then every 1.5 hours during the day to try to keep the peroxide concentration up. Unfortunately, this is when I started to see algae issues, and wound up with spreading hair algae, as well as diatom and dino outbreaks, despite my nutrients staying relatively high, so I won’t get into that dosing schedule. I backed it off, and ultimately settled on this dosage:
- 1mL per 5 gallons (24mL) every 12 hours, just before lights on and just after lights off.
- 2mL every 15 minutes for 6 hours overnight (for a total of 48mL)
Note: I do think it’s important to start at the 1mL/8-10 gallon every 8-12 hours to give the tank time to adjust, and work up to the higher and more frequent dosing.
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Other thoughts/concerns:
- Is it 100% reef safe? I'd say no, but what is? There's always a trade-off somewhere. Although I only lost 3 out of 14 fish (21%) with this method, I did lose several inverts and a few corals, although most did survive unscathed (whether the losses were directly due to the peroxide or due to the toxic byproducts that built up when I wasn’t running carbon, I can’t say).
Invert losses: All trochus, margarita, and turbo snails, 1 tropical abalone, 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 pincushion urchin, and 1 maxima clam (not dead yet, but not looking great, so I expect I'll likely lose it)
Coral losses: Only softies/polyps (pipe organ coral, toadstool leather, finger leather, purple gorgonian, several kenya trees)
Invert survivors: All nerite, cerith, and bumblebee snails, all money cowries, 1 tropical abalone, fighting conch, electric flame scallop, various hermit/pitho/strawberry/pom pom crabs, rock flower/BTA/mini carpet anemones, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 sexy shrimp 3 urchins (tuxedo, short spine, and Halloween), and 1 maxima clam. The BTAs actually continued to split like crazy while I was doing this – there were probably 12 in the tank when I started, and that number at least doubled.
Coral survivors: SPS frags (pocillapora, millepora, digitata, bonsai acro, various montis, psammacora, potato chip, elephant skin), large monti cap, variety of LPS (frogspawns, hammers, torches, cristata, acans, favias, pearl bubble, leptastrea, gonis/alveoporas, moseleya, fungia plate, turbinara, duncans, lobos, galaxea, blastos, candy cane, pectinia), one zoa colony (it actually went from 2 polyps to 5), and several mushrooms
- Did I have far better fish outcomes than I would have if I'd pulled everyone into treatment and gone fallow? I believe so. I've seen far greater losses when I've treated with CP or copper in a hospital tank. The fish continued to behave normally, and I didn't see any appetite suppression the entire time, besides that one anthias that I lost.
However, caveat to that…:
- Do I think the parasite is gone? No, but I do think it's well controlled. After two months, I installed a UV sterilizer and discontinued the peroxide dosing. I will continue to watch closely in the coming months to see if I need to start back up again.
- Would I take this approach again? Absolutely. No quarantine or treatment regimen is going to be 100% effective 100% of the time, so if something pops up again despite my best efforts, I will choose this method over going fallow.
FTS at the beginning of treatment:
View attachment 1712
FTS at the end of treatment:
View attachment 1713
