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Can I bleach plants to kill BBA?

daizeUK

daizeUK

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18 Jun 2013
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Location
Berkshire
Algae has overtaken my tank, mostly a long-haired variety of BBA with soft wavy black strands about an inch or two long. I want to tear the tank down and start from scratch.

There are a couple of plants that I'd like to save, namely a beautiful cryptocoryne and some anubias species which are doing pretty well and look quite healthy despite GSA and BBA on the leaves.

When I start over I don't want to risk bringing any algae into the new tank. Can I use a 5% bleach solution to kill off an algae/spores on these plants and safely use them in my new setup? If so how long should I leave them in the bleach solution?
 
Algae outbreaks are because something in your tank isn't right, rather than being "unlucky" and some algae getting in. So you might just end up with a new algae farm regardless. You should probably focus on working out what's causing it (excessive light intensity and duration?). You can spot treat algae with liquid carbon without restarting your tank, too. But again it's not going to stay away unless you work out what's triggering it!

I know some people bleach dip plants, but I always thought that was an anti-snail measure rather than algae. This might be useful.
 
I've used potassium permanganate solution to de-snail and attempt to de-algae plants before.
 
I think there's plenty of reports of bleach dips on the web.

I recently bleached all of my hardscape with great success. But obviously I didn't have to worry about killing plants...

Good luck. Please report on how you get on. It will be interesting for others to learn too. 🙂
 
Thanks for the replies. According to your link and other sources on the web, plants can be left anywhere from 30 seconds to 15 minutes depending on who you ask! 🙂 Judging by what I've read so far I'd be tempted to try a 2-4 minute dip for the anubias and less for the cryptocoryne, maybe 40-60 seconds. I have several anubias bonsai plants so I might try dipping them for different lengths of time and report the results.

Rahms said:
Algae outbreaks are because something in your tank isn't right, rather than being "unlucky" and some algae getting in. So you might just end up with a new algae farm regardless. You should probably focus on working out what's causing it (excessive light intensity and duration?). You can spot treat algae with liquid carbon without restarting your tank, too. But again it's not going to stay away unless you work out what's triggering it!
Click to expand...

I used a DIY yeast system on my tank with fantastic results for the first 6 months. Then the long BBA started to creep in and maintenance was starting to take longer each week to clear it out. It's easy enough to remove manually, unlike the short-haired BBA which clings like grim death but the long version can be pulled out very easily. The problem is it comes back twice as hard afterwards!

I also squirted a dose of EasyCarbo on to affected areas with success. After a couple of treatments the algae would disappear for 2-3 weeks before colonising again. In the end there was too much of it all over the tank to keep this treatment up.

I spent hours each week for month battling this algae but it was demoralizing coming back from holidays to find all my hard work undone. Earlier this year I blamed the yeast for unstable CO2 levels and unplugged it to see what would happen. I was hoping my plants (all easy, undemanding plants) would survive without CO2 and the BBA would perish. Instead the algae has thrived, half of my plants are dead and the tank looks a mess.

So I was thinking of investing in a pressurized CO2 system and starting from scratch. I'm weighing up the costs and options now. Hopefully a stable CO2 supply will have better results. I'm scared of adding CO2 to the tank in its current state, with poorly plants and strongly established algae, I'd probably just make things worse, so I reckon I need to bleach or discard everything in the tank first.

For info, my lights are T8's with reflectors (now removed) and only on for 6-8 hours a day so I don't think I have too much light.
 
daizeUK said:
For info, my lights are T8's with reflectors (now removed) and only on for 6-8 hours a day so I don't think I have too much light.
Click to expand...

crypts and anubias need almost nothing though. I had a pristine anubias growing in a tank without a light, in a shaded corner of my living room until recently!
 
Will do but I'm still in the planning phase for the new setup and it might be a few weeks yet before I'm ready to take this tank apart and bleach the plants.
 
H2O2 applied underwater (and carefully) is another option. Just use a normal sprayer, take off the plastic tube inside the bottle that sucks the water, close it again, invert it, put it inside the tank, and once your filter is off spray here and there. In a few minutes algae will begin to bubble. Beware with your plants and critters. It's difficult to overdose (as it can happens with a syringe) as the amount released each time you spray is very small.

Another option is to do this but when you do the WC and both plants and equipment are emersed. In that case you have to be much more careful as H2O2 is not diluted in water. I use this technique mainly for the equipment (small algae spots on heater, spraybar, etc.). Actually I am using H2O2 more often than bleach. For example I clean now my CO2 ceramic diffuser every week to make sure I've got the finest bubbles. There is not really a need of bleaching the diffuser weekly, it works fine with a H2O2 and believe me, it really makes a difference. Another good thing is that you don't have to worry too much about rinsing the remaining bleach. The bleaching for diffuser and lily pipes is done every 2 months, more than enough if you combine it with H2O2.

Jordi
 
I'm reconciled to breaking the tank down as it's beyond rescue by spot treatment but I'll bear the sprayer idea in mind for future treatments, thanks.
Do you think that hydrogen peroxide would make a better algaecide than bleach for blitzing the empty tank, hardscape and substrate? I've never used it before but it sounds more fish-friendly than bleach!
 
I've used potassium permanganate solution to de-snail and attempt to de-algae plants before.
would this kill hydra?
Joe
 
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