peroxide for cyanobacteria

["Brian Harmon" <harmon at msg_ucsf.edu>]

On Mon, 29 Jul 2002 15:48:00 -0400 (EDT) Bill Wu 
<bwu at ualberta_ca> wrote:

>It worked well for me too.  It took care of some hair 
>algae as well.

It's worked well for me in the past, but I've had
problems.  If you overdose, you can wipe out a lot of
the bacteria that fix ammonia and nitrites.  I ended
up with a rather nasty nitrite spike the last time
I used H2O2 that wiped out 15 shrimp.

Delicate plants didn't seem to like it much either, the 
leaves on my Micranthemum umbrosum all turned translucent 
and the stems fell apart. 

I tend to avoid H2O2, if/when I get a really nasty 
outbreak I'll resort to good ol' erythromycin. [yes, i'm 
aware of
the concerns re:resistant strains, if anyone cares I can 
outline why i think this is overrated.]

In general, if I have good plant growth cyanobacteria 
can't get started.  Once it gets past a certain point, 
nothing short of massive intervention gets rid of it.

- Brian Harmon