# Safe bleach for bleach dip



## oscarlloydjohn (24 Apr 2018)

I realise a Potassium Permanganate dip or H2O2 dip would be safer for my Buce but I don't have any on hand and H2O2 is really hard to get in the UK.

What kind of bleach do you guys use for bleach dips? I was thinking Tesco or Asda basic value bleach. I saw George Farmer use the Tesco value stuff for CO2 diffusers so I'd assume that's safe. 

All my local shops stock only Domestos bleach but it has "soap" and "perfume" in it so that's probably not safe.

Are there any red flags when it comes to ingredients?

Cheers

Also, am I safe to submerge the whole Buce including roots in a bleach dip?


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## greenmac75 (24 Apr 2018)

George not long ago put up a video on youtube using the tesco one to treat an algae outbreak.


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## alto (24 Apr 2018)

Why bleach rather than liquid carbon (Seachem Excel etc) - what are you trying to gain?

Buces can be prone to melting for no _apparent_ specific reason 

Can you not get that basic Tesco Bleach that George Farmer used?

You want to avoid "thick bleach", perfumes, "fabric guard" etc


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## oscarlloydjohn (24 Apr 2018)

alto said:


> Why bleach rather than liquid carbon (Seachem Excel etc) - what are you trying to gain?
> 
> Buces can be prone to melting for no _apparent_ specific reason
> 
> ...



I'm trying to kill Cladophora on a Buce that I got online. I just thought bleach would be more effective. Can an Excel dip kill all the Clado? I have some on hand but I don't know how to make a dip.

Thanks


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## alto (24 Apr 2018)

Have you watched

*VBLOG - Algae? Yes, I have them too! How to fix it!*
Filipe Oliveira

YouTube link


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## a1Matt (24 Apr 2018)

oscarlloydjohn said:


> H2O2



You can buy this at the pharmacy counter in Boots (I assume all or most chemists also sell it).


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## Tim Harrison (25 Apr 2018)

You can buy H2O2 on eBay. You need food grade 3%


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## zozo (25 Apr 2018)

oscarlloydjohn said:


> I'm trying to kill Cladophora on a Buce



I have this algae in one of my tanks.. Tho never seen it attach to any plants. It spreads around in long threads twining through and around anything in its path. Anyway it's one of the hardest algae to kill. This kinda you can already feel, depending on which clado you have it might already feel very tough and hard between your fingers for an alga. It has a tough shell and you feel it snap if you break it.  It is very plant like, h2o2 definitively damages it, but not quite enough to kill it.

What helps is remove as much as possible manualy and treat what remains with peroxide and black the tank out for a couple of days.. Than it will be damaged and deprived from light. That way you eliminate it's chance for recovery and after a few days blackout you see all that remained in the tank beeing grey in color. 

But spores might survive and it just might be back in a few weeks time. As said it's a bugger to kill off completely, you need a bit of luck or several attemps.


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## oscarlloydjohn (25 Apr 2018)

zozo said:


> It is very plant like, h2o2 definitively damages it, but not quite enough to kill it.



It's not actually in the tank yet, rather in a quarantine tub so I don't add any into the tank. Do you know if a bleach dip can kill all of it?


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## zozo (25 Apr 2018)

Dunno.. Never used bleach to dip plants in.... What i red about it, bleach penetrates the cell wall and kills the nucleus, so obviously if it doesn't penetrate it doesn't kill. Peroxide oxidizes (burns) the cell wall from the outside in.. 

Than adding all this up and if the plant can take it, in theory, first spray peroxide to damage the outher cell wall. Than dip it in a mild bleach solution to make it penetrate easier, should be most effective.

But as said, no idea how the plant will take it.. The plant obviously get burned a bit as well and likely absorb bleach into  it's cells like that and suffer damage. 

I just don't like the idea of using bleach on plants i sometimes use 3% peroxide only and find it in any Farmacy. 

The bleach to use is the unscented Thin Bleach.. In most cases the thin bleach is unscented because it has no real purpose to use cosmeticaly/sanitary like the always scented thick bleach. Thick bleach is used like that for desinfecting toillets etc. It it's sprayed under the rim or other hard to get to places it runs down slow and is easier to apply with a brush. Thin bleach runs like water so it's not practicaly applicable like that and there for used for other purposes and thus no need to be scented. So look around in the supermarket for thin bleach.. Usualy the bleach in the normal straight bottle neck is thin bleach.. If the bottle has a bend neck it's 99% sure parfumed bleach for sanitary use, don't have to bother about them. Find a straight neck bottle and read the label if it's thin and no parfume etc..


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## Zeus. (25 Apr 2018)

I have a Buce that had the dark aglea on the edges of the leaves in my High tech tank, it was getting too much light and has been in tank over a year, flowers like mad, s dosed daily with LCO2, it was starting to look not so nice, so I took it out and put in in a small low tech tank, the tank contains a bit of DW and it use it for storage of various plants has light and filter heater etc and quite a few neocardina in it. ( the neocardina are the poor quality ones I had removed from my 50L high tech tank to keep the neocardina colours good, removed the ones you dont like OFC) The Buce is doing fine and the aglea has gone. I dose the tank a couple of times a week with all in one ferts no AS in tank, light on low, never feed the neocardina. 

Plan to put it back in tank when I have time to take the rocks out the buce was stuck between as they are in need of a bleach.  
The rocks I have clwaned with Miltons now are looking great





I have aready got some cheap thn asda bleach 28pence for two litres for the next rocks, 'Miltons not as cheap'


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## doylecolmdoyle (25 Apr 2018)

I have used bleach a fair few times to dip plants, usually hardy plants like Java Fern etc, any really soft leaf plants probably wont like being dipped, generally the plants have survived but I was dipping to try remove any critters that may have hitch hiked on the plants rather than remove algae, I feel it is effective against most algae but I am not sure about BGA, I think it can help remove BBA and GSA, BGA/Clado is a different beast.

If you do get a bad breakout of BGA look into Chemiclean, I have read that it is pretty much guaranteed to clear up BGA, I have brought some but never needed to use it. Increasing nitrates and flow can help clear up BGA


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## kadoxu (26 Apr 2018)

I've used bleach to clean some BBA from some plastic plants this week. Left them soaking for 2 days and there was still a small patch of black when I took the plastic plants out... a beast of an algae!


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