Can these plants handle a bleach dip? Is it really needed?

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tfish

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Feb 6, 2003
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I am trying to get rid of some brush algea in my 55. This past weekend I did a 50% water change and added some nutrients: flourish, KNO3, K2SO4, and KH2PO4. I also tweeked my DIY CO2 in order to give me a pH of ~6.8 (KH 5). I scraped quite a bit of algea from any equipment in the tank as well as driftwood. I then vaccummed as much as I could.

Just yesterday, I read that I should also do some pruning and bleaching in order to get rid of as much algea on the plants as possible. My amazon sword is pretty firmly imbedded in the substrate, so I left it in and did some MAJOR pruning. I took out my java ferns I put them in a bleach dip for ~ 4min. I have some other plants that I am thinking of dipping but was a little weary on which plants could handle it. Here are the plants I am thinking of: moneywort (bacopa monneri?), scarlet hygro, rotala indica. All are stem plants that are not yet too embedded. Can these be bleached or should I not subject them to this harsh of a treatment? (Really the algae isn't too bad -- it's pretty new. I don't have any SAEs or shrimp to help out though -- can't find them in ANY LFSs. :()

Thanks for any tips and/or ideas!!
 

Tempest

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Jun 8, 2002
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I'd think that with the stem plants you'd be better off to top them and replant just the tops. I can't see your plants of course but usually the bottom parts would be where the algae would be the worst and the stem plants tend to grow back fast. I've never bleach dipped a stem plant but it's pretty harsh and I'd think it would grow back in faster just topping.
 

djlen

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Aug 19, 2002
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I agree with Tempest. Even at a 20:1 ratio, I think bleaching is a harsh way of doing it.
It sounds like you've done a pretty good job of cleaning up the tank tfish. Remember that you can take any equipment, filter tubes, heaters etc. and dip them in a heavy concentration of bleach with no harm done as long as you wash and rinse well and then rinse them again in water treated with the water conditioner you use at water changes. I know how tough that hair algae is to scrape off. That's why I brought up the dipping of equipment.
With your cleaning regimen, do as many water changes as you can to keep the water table clean, making sure you don't leave any sediment(mulm) sitting on the substrate, and you should start to see a decrease in the algae.
When you find authentic SAE's pick up a pair, and a couple of Otos wouldn't hurt either.
Len
 
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