Potassium permanganate: do you dare?

[wetmanNY]

KMnO4. So dangerous in enthusiastic hands. I've just finished burning two tanks with the freshly-mixed powder, made into a stock solution and used at 2 ppm, to beat minor cilioate ectoparasites.

The water (after the hydrogen peroxide counter-treatment) is crystal clear. The fish are energized by the extra oxygen: minute bubbles all over. Algae will be severely hampered.

I got my KMnO4 crystals from PondRx.com. A pound of it! Will I live to be a hundred and ten?

Does anyone else ever still do this old regimen in an aquarium any more? Or am I the last fool?

[Charone]

Hey wetman,
I'm no old-schooler, so, fill me it, what/how does it work? benifits in your eyes? Back in highschool, we used to mix that with a certain household ingredient to make smoke bombs, but apparently it has other uses!

[karfixer]

I've heard that is good for killing snails on new plants, but never as a treatment for a tank.

[wetmanNY]

For killing snails when you're getting new plants it has to be a strong dip-- too strong for a tank. I haven't used KMnO4 this way, but it's a trad use.

Dr Erik Johnson at www.koivet.com has the most complete set of directions and the why and wherefore of potassium permanganate. It's under "Medication and doses"

Bookmark that site, if you haven't already!

[Matak]

I would have liked to join your ranks nine months ago to sterilize a peice of driftwood, but gave up looking after a couple of months of fruitless searching. Where did you get yours?

[RTR]

Potassium permanganate is rather risky stuff to work with in the home.

MSDS is available at:

http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/p6005.htm

[wetmanNY]

Thank you, RTR. I've uploaded the material safety data sheet on potassium permanganate to www.skepticalaquarist.com .

Several repeat treatments with potassium permanganate, until 2 ppm takes four hours to completely oxidize, have eliminated minor skin parasites on my Pearl Gouramis. Without the irritation, they are now producing less skin slime, their darkened colors have cleared, and the water is crisp and clean.

But I followed Erik Johnson's directions extremely cautiously. I treated the powder with great care. I didn't overdose. I don't have children. ..

A reward for behaving like an adult is that you're entitled to work with adult materials. But when I hear how erythromycin is splashed about to counter every appearance of cyanobacteria now, well, I wonder whether KMnO4 should be mentioned at all in a public forum...

[MP]

To answer your original question... Count me in although I don't use it often nowdays. Thirty years ago we used KMnO4 as often as salt or nitrofurans.

[beviking]

Never used it at home, probably never will, but it use to be used at the hatchery often. The water source is a stream so results were variable due to dissolved solids?, organics? (can't recall off the top of my head). Anyway, it's nice not to have to worry about O2 depletion, though the MSDS shows other worries.

[anonapersona]

It is also available at Sears hardware, in the water softener department, $5 for a small jar.

I haven't used it yet, but intend to use it to sterilize a used canister filter.

The folks on the Puregold goldfish site use it frequently.

The cautions are so serious, I am wary of opening the jar and will wait until the weather is nice to do it outside.

[wetmanNY]

I would definitely mix up a stock solution indoors, under controlled conditions, not outdoors. It stains clothes and skin, and one grain blown into your eye would be painful.

A definite indoor thing. Even when pondkeepers use KMnO4, they mix it up in advance.

[anonapersona]

Yeah, I know about how toxic it is, eye and lung protection essential. Stains the tub, hands. I'm not quite sure where I will be comfortable opening this stuff! By outside, I mean in the garage, not the yard.

In the info from Puregold.aquaria.net there are several cautions about high pH causing tiny manganese oxide salts which may plug the fishes gill and could kill them, and oxidation of "organics" will produce carbon monoxide and a number of carboxylic acids...I don't really understand this, but thought you might. How high is too high, I don't know, I wonder if my 8.2 tap water is too high.

Also, it says that dechlor will inactivate it, some water seems to inactivate it also, they suggest testing in a bucket to see that the treatment will hold pink for 8 hours. "For argulus, anchor worm, gill and body flukes, columnaris, other external parasites and bacteria but not ich, sterilizing tanks and filters, cleaning plants."

The stuff is a great favorite of some pond people.

I don't hear about it much with tropical fish, I don't know why.

[wetmanNY]

Is the reaction of potassium permanganate in water pH dependent? Fishdoc also says it is:
http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/treatments/potassium%20permanganate.htm

I wasn't aware of that (in my soft acidic water) --and that's just the kind of question I was hoping to stir up.

As for manganese dioxide (MnO2) my understanding is that it's always a final result when the oxidizing power is spent .Not just at high pH values. Gill damage, though, is also a possibility from the oxidizing effect itself.

First the K dissociates, then the unstable manganic ion MnO4 starts oxidizing any organic molecule it meets: bacterial cell wall, algal cell wall, ciliate cell wall, dissolved organic carbon free in the water... and it can burn fish gills. 2ppm is quoted as a maximum dose.

The final product MnO2 precipitates out. The stock solution stains a glass container brown. Another reason not to overdose-- and I avoid buffing off the biofilm from the tank glass just before using KMnO4. Hydrogen peroxide hastens the clearing reaction: it neutralizes potassium permanganate at any point in the treatment. (i.e. always have some at hand).

You're right. potassium permanganate is more often a koi pool treatment. In the small volume of an aquarium, you have to be cautious not to over dose.

[anonapersona]

One application that might be of interest, Puregold comments that when cleaning a nasty pond or tank where H2S is a concern, the use of PP can protect the fish.

But, wouldn't it also kill all the other microscopic life that make the planted tank so fine for fish?

I can see using it in the Q tank, but wonder if it is ever appropriate in the planted tank. I guess it would depend on how bad the condition was in the tank.


Puregold also states that light inactivates PP, you should observe for 15 mnutes for adverse reactions, then turn off lights and cover the tank. And have a bucket of untreated tank water handy in case there is an adverse reaction.

Puregold (http://users.megapathdsl.net/~solo/puregold/home.html)

[anonapersona]

I have been wondering about what sort of treatments new fsih ought to get upon arrival.

The goldfish site suggests a salt dip and possible PP dip. I recall Vickie on the AB board has said she does deworming, and something else routinely.

I read that PP is a very safe treatment (once you get the stuff mixed up!)

Now that my tanks are stable I want to be sure I do things correctly as I introduce any new fish.

Do you do any treatments, or just quarantine and observe?

[wetmanNY]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by anonapersona
One application that might be of interest, Puregold comments that when cleaning a nasty pond or tank where H2S is a concern, the use of PP can protect the fish.

Its oxidizing action would convert the sulfide to harmless sulfate (SO4)

But, wouldn't it also kill all the other microscopic life that make the planted tank so fine for fish?

Yes, a major drawback. Unselective in its effects. While KMnO4 is pink and therefore active, you're supposed to keep all filter media out of harm's way.

I can see using it in the Q tank, but wonder if it is ever appropriate in the planted tank. I guess it would depend on how bad the condition was in the tank.

Well, it's used as an anti-snail dip for plants. It's harder on the algal coating than it is on the plants.