Will hydrogen peroxide give false ammonia readings?

[Kurtl000]

Making a long story short I cleaned my rock with peroxide to get rid of algae and dinoflagellates VERY THOROUGHLY. I did this on saturday. I understand I probably killed a good portion of my biological bacteria. I tested my ammonia and its at 1 ppm. So heres the thing, my clam is acting normal same with the frogspawn and the fish. Zoas are still closed but thats just theyre nature when theyre ****ed off. Seeing the NH4 so high I did a 75 percent water change. Guess what? Ammonia exactly the same! Thoughts?

[bertoni]

Something died. The hydrogen peroxide is long gone. I would dose a lot of Prime or Amquel.

[Kurtl000]

That's so strange though how would the ammonia not drop at all from a 75% water change?????

[sn4265]

You sure about your test kit? When did you do your first ammonia test, and when did you do the water change? Could be that ammonia was still on the rise if for instance you did the first test last night and then the water change and follow-up test this morning.

I would agree that something died, but this could simply be tons of stuff in the rocks.

[Kurtl000]

Well I used two different API test kits. Maybe ill try a different brand. And the first test was yesterday afternoon did the 3/4 water change that night tested 20 minutes later same thing. Its only a 25 gallon I would notice if something died.

[disc1]

Its only a 25 gallon I would notice if something died.

Yeah you'd notice an ammonia spike...

Something has definitely died. Whether it was bacteria or pods or what who knows but something definitely died when you put that peroxide on it.

[brandon429]

No nothing happened, its an error reading

If you search, or I can link you to many threads, amm readings are commonly simply wrong.

The use of peroxide killed no bacteria, its a common myth of using it. All you do is ignore the reading and proceed. Do more 75% changes when you can, they are great for your tank.

[brandon429]

The tank and corals will simply continue just fine and the peroxide may or may not help your targets to stay away. The only time you need to concern yourself with making an amm test in an established tank is when you have a missing fish, no benthic life loss will register it. If you ran biocidal agents that's another time to check, amm test kits are the least important test kits in reefing. You can run tanks without them, it's the most predictable param we work with, your ammonia didn't spike.

[brandon429]

You have a better gauge of ammonia frm your tank inhabitants than you do from a test kit. Your fish will let you know. If you proceed as if nothing happened you w see that next week things are just fine like they are this week. There is no impending doom for your tank

[disc1]

Peroxide doesn't kill bacteria??? So all that use on cuts and scrapes is for naught?

Peroxide will kill bacteria indiscriminately. We could verify that experimentally if you have a hard time believing it, but it is a pretty widely known fact for the last many many years. Just look at the number of sanitation products out there that work with nothing more than a peroxide or peroxy acid.

[tmz]

Peroxide kills stuff, it's not a myth ,ime. Decay causes ammonia. It needs to be used sparingly and carefully if at all.

[Kurtl000]

So confused lol brandon429 does have a point though shouldn't my clam be dead by now? Shouldn't my frogspawn be contracted and melting not poofy and wavy? And the fish are acting normal picking at the rock here and there(why there's nothing there lol) anyway I put some prime in there.

[brandon429]

I know this is sensitive in this forum lol I'll write carefully. Y'all already responded much nicer than i expected so thanks for the civil reception in 13 :)

Hot topic, fun topic.
one thing to consider about peroxide opining, differently than other forms of chem battles in here, is that no one throws up peer reviewed links regarding biocidal aspects of it in the reef tank because there aren't any, opinions are all we have...if it was any other common aspect of reef chem, anti snake oil masters here would link in such a way that it would be open and shut case.

My statement primarily comes from the thousands of cases i collect online in the obvious threads, and secondarily from some neat and informal actual lab testing using 3%...in the 90s long before i reefed.

I worked at a micro lab for beef processing doing environmental sampling and assessment for bacterial contaminants. I was the tech, my boss was the smart one. I did random surface testing and counts, boss had us experimenting with everything from quat ammonia to bleach to alcohol to peroxide in an attempt to lessen workboot cross contamination around the plant. We were also looking for additives the morning power washers could use as a hose down to help fight cross contam

nothing genetic level like nowadays, just simple inoculation, aseptic technique and plate counts on various agars after 48 hr incubation. Instead of 8 hours a day looking for e coli counts in hamburger meat lol i got to spend two months testing everywhere in the plant for pre and post treatment counts
using all kinds of sterilizers. 3% was in the mix...

I was fascinated with the hunt, and part of that journey was simply testing common things to see how sterilization worked on generalized aerobic bacteria
This included silly testing of non helpful things like pizza slices that set in the fridge for a week lol, just trying to learn a little extra...

Did a mouth swab on myself and plated/counted the mix of filth after incubation

Repeated post gargle with 3%, nothing changed. Every hard surface tested with 3% was an insignificant kill

it took all this qualifying type to get to that part. We found statistical insignificance pre and post in every way peroxide was used, it was the first consideration disregarded.
Our live rock has more interstices than the stratified epithelia in our mouths...what may be killed can't be quantified well. Imo.

Guess how unhelpful hand sanitizer is too...colony rebound in 15 mins back to pre treatment levels on your hands. Thorough scrubbing with water alone removes more.

Sure peroxide is common in some medical areas due to the physical lifting/debriding offered by bubbles. Anaerobes hate it, but for the group of bacteria that are adapted to oxygen and free radicals its nothing, and not every doctor agrees its helpful.

Sure it can be assumed our -denitrifiers- might hate it, but we don't get nitrate spikes in the thousands of tanks we treat far worse than an external treatment described here. Thanks for reading my rant. Those were good times and fun times and yes i had a real Mullet.

[brandon429]

I have no idea if there is some way peroxide affects amm testing to be even more unreliable...

[brandon429]

Disc regarding the sanitation products that to me is just like Lysol spray

There are targets it will kill given correct dosages contact times etc

But will spraying it up into the air after a sick person leaves the room help us avoid the flu? Lol admit that's the way most use it.

Same for peroxide

The way we use it here is now safe, whether its effective depends.

Any application method someone used in the past with negative results now has alternate methods for application various posters have found that control collateral loss to the point no harm is measured

Arguments of the past were that someone used it and an an unintended loss occurred.
That was the wrong way to apply it perhaps.


It is a fact to say that the longer the public uses a new method new understanding will develop. That allows for differences in finding with peroxide use in the reef vs older predictions that limited it as universally sterilizing and destructive. Many trends in reef keeping cleared that hurdle.

Regarding my lab story I wouldn't want anyone to think I'd make that up and include the detail about the mullet. Eventually a working hardcore microbiologist will read this and dice me up if what I wrote isn't the case. I love filtering info through this forum, verbal daggers will be unleashed like the kraken on fakirs.

Our peroxide challenge thread here at RC will be around several more years. Try to imagine 2015 having vastly different results than 2011 till now.

We have enough data now to have reasonable insight about it vs just guessing what actually happens, that's my opinion.

Lastly, the intended goal of the peroxide thread was to take in tanks that weren't fixed otherwise and set them up with a custom approach to try and use it to beat everything, permanently. Perhaps a rather high bar lol in hindsight.

Kill and sustain I put more closer to 70% by now

But collateral loss, unintended loss including amm spikes and nitrate spikes frm filter bed loss using any dosage any kill method, hundred percent controllable across five forums worth now.

Worst report we had anyway where people opted for their own application method was the loss of some pods on the tested surface. Imagine how many are naturally predated in the tank...to me the perspective matters not just what it killed in someone's tank one time.

[bertoni]

I wouldn't conclude that the ammonia kit must be bad without getting a second opinion on the test kit. Some animals, like certain sponges, die on contact with the air, so even removing the live rock from water without any treatment can and has caused massive die-offs.

[tmz]

IME ammonia test kits, Salifert and api are quite reliable;certainly at 1ppm which is high and obvious. It may have been so high that the water change didn't move the test result perceptably. The test could be wrong but it wouldn't be my first reach.

Ammonia appears to have spiked;that happens from the decay of dead things; something died perhaps a substantial portion of the biofilter,amybe some filter feeders in the rock, bacteria perhaps,come organics may have been degraded,and on and on; peroxide was the known killer in the room.
I've used it on frags and out of tank applications for small amounts of rock. It does a nice job on red turf algae. It also drops mini serpent stars in a heartbeat, sends pods madly scurrying for safety and likely kills untoward amounts of microfuana and coraline alge . It does not have much if any long term affect on bryopsis or certain types of hair algae (derbesia).ime.

It may not kill corals orfish at very low dose but enough of it will. How much is guesswork and an unecessary risk .