KMnO4

[karimwassef]

What's the most effective way to neutralize potassium permanganate?

I'm running a 90min soak for some very large corals and expect that it would soak into the rockwork too. The pieces will go into quarantine for a while, so I'd like to make sure the quarantine water was a mechanism to neutralize any residual chemical.

The soak is 50mg/L in a 30gal tub.

Quarantine is a 50gal tub.

I was thinking a simple GAC reactor?

[bertoni]

An acid or hydrogen peroxide would do the job. I'm not sure about activated carbon, but it might work, as well. Potassium permanganate is a strong oxidizer, so I'd expect it to react with carbon.

[karimwassef]

So would I dose peroxide into the circulating flow away from the corals to neutralize it?

What would be the output? How would the Mn settle out?

[Dan_P]

Many internet references to hydrogen peroxide as a neutralizer of permanganate.

[karimwassef]

How would you implement it?

Should I dose it directly into the quarantine tank?

Should I run a second peroxide soak cycle after the KMnO4 soak?

Should I run a peroxide reactor chamber (dose into a controlled volume) on the quarantine tank?

[Dan_P]

How would you implement it?

Should I dose it directly into the quarantine tank?

Should I run a second peroxide soak cycle after the KMnO4 soak?

Should I run a peroxide reactor chamber (dose into a controlled volume) on the quarantine tank?

Question, does it matter that some permanganate is being carried along? How much did you use and how much do you feel is hanging around? Why not just rinse off the specimens and forget about the possibly small residual of permangante?

[bertoni]

I'd probably ditch all of the water around the coral, and call it good enough, but if you add about twice as many moles of hydrogen peroxide as potassium permanganate, that should do the job.

[karimwassef]

Permanganate is very reactive. Even a small dose can kill fish and inverts and I'm doing a very heavy soak 50mg/l for 90min.

I'm concerned that the coral may not even survive that, but it's a necessary evil.

Once / if they survive, I want to give them the best chances for survival.

[karimwassef]

Ok. So the plan is to soak for 90min in the permanganate 50mg/l x 30gals.

Then rinse in tank water for a few minutes.

Then shake the water off.

Then dip in peroxide at xxx concentration for 15 minutes.

Then return to quarantine.

[bertoni]

That should do it, although I'd probably use a shorter dip in the peroxide. The potassium permanganate is at about 50 ppm. The hydrogen peroxide dose would be very small, and it'd have to be added at about the same time as the corals.

[karimwassef]

So what concentration for the peroxide? Shorten to 5 minutes?

[bertoni]

Something like 10 ppm would be fine.

[karimwassef]

?? So like 1ml in 30gal?

Seems like a very small quantity

[bertoni]

If you are using 3% hydrogen peroxide, that's about 3 grams per 100 ml, or 3,000 ppm. Something like 12 ml per gallon would be a lot, given that ditching the water will remove almost all of the potassium permanganate. If you want to go as high as 12 ml, I suspect that 60 seconds will be more than enough.

[karimwassef]

ok. In that case, I'll put them back in the quarantine 50gal tank and add 600ml of peroxide. It'll dissipate in a minute and that should be enough.

[karimwassef]

Ok... So KMnO4 is not so easy to use.

First 50mg/L in 20L is 1000mg... That's a LOT of permanganate.

It turned the water ink black, not purple.
<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/4AE4936A-7BF7-4503-A99B-E4805D2FFB6C_zpsubwxveez.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/4AE4936A-7BF7-4503-A99B-E4805D2FFB6C_zpsubwxveez.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 4AE4936A-7BF7-4503-A99B-E4805D2FFB6C_zpsubwxveez.jpg"/></a>

It stains skin instantly, but is removable with peroxide. It also stains all coral tissue instantly and porous SPS like montis drink it up like a sponge (spongodes ...).

After the soak, I transferred all the corals into a peroxide (20ml/gal) soak... I drained each piece until it had no more water running out of it. The soak water fizzed but turned purple... Each piece added to the soak made it more purple until it was ink dark like the permanganate soak. It wasn't as concentrated, I could tell when pulling the pieces out again, but still pitch black.

So, I used a rinse bucket with a much higher peroxide concentration. I used 250ml peroxide in 2.5gal saltwater in a 5gal bucket. At 100ml/gal, I could dip, rinse and shake the corals in the bucket until the water went from purple to brown. Only then would I put the coral in the next saltwater container. I did this with each piece.

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/C830973E-6A5E-4130-B912-860CF7937253_zpsoriidtjl.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/C830973E-6A5E-4130-B912-860CF7937253_zpsoriidtjl.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo C830973E-6A5E-4130-B912-860CF7937253_zpsoriidtjl.jpg"/></a>

After they were all done, I still noticed a purple trail flowing out of some of them!!

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I filled the quarantine tank with 50gal of freshly made saltwater after completely emptying and washing it with peroxide. This was useful in cleaning my stained hands too. I used gloves, but it was inevitable.

I added 500ml of peroxide to the quarantine tank and set the water circulating. Then I added the corals one by one. Draining every bit of brown/purple water...

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/74BDF04D-C793-49DC-9F93-3338376E606B_zpsyaemhzmf.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/74BDF04D-C793-49DC-9F93-3338376E606B_zpsyaemhzmf.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 74BDF04D-C793-49DC-9F93-3338376E606B_zpsyaemhzmf.jpg"/></a>

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<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/27612BDE-1E9A-4211-9892-7923AEF409B7_zpswi8htkde.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/27612BDE-1E9A-4211-9892-7923AEF409B7_zpswi8htkde.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 27612BDE-1E9A-4211-9892-7923AEF409B7_zpswi8htkde.jpg"/></a>

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We'll see. It was a monster effort for a massive cleanup - or eradication - of corals.

[karimwassef]

the corals look terrible, but they were in bad shape before the soak.

Here they are originally

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/23079D6E-7E87-4120-9974-0B3DE85C0474_zpsjozpg89s.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/23079D6E-7E87-4120-9974-0B3DE85C0474_zpsjozpg89s.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 23079D6E-7E87-4120-9974-0B3DE85C0474_zpsjozpg89s.jpg"/></a>

and then as the disease spread

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/BB201B9B-3D36-4CA7-A7A7-5EB5D38AA87F_zpsz14y2qdu.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/BB201B9B-3D36-4CA7-A7A7-5EB5D38AA87F_zpsz14y2qdu.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo BB201B9B-3D36-4CA7-A7A7-5EB5D38AA87F_zpsz14y2qdu.jpg"/></a>

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