# Peroxide / Bleach



## Tom Higgs (Mar 2, 2006)

I was looking at few posts where folks talk about treating plants with diluted bleach or peroxide to kill the algae on the leaves. Is this done as a last resort or is it common practice? I see many photos of tanks that seem to have the most pristine looking plants I've ever seen. Mine are, and have been doing very well for some time, but I do deal with some algae on the leaves, especially on anubias and swords, which I hear is common. I'd like to know from those who have used these treatments successfully what there regimen is. I would think you would need to exercise extreme care to keep from harming the plant and the balance of the aquarium with these disinfectants. 

thanks
Tom


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Algae problems should be handled by improving the conditions that are leading to the algae problems. Unfortunately, that won't normally kill existing algae growths. So, some of us try to both improve the conditions, and remove all of the existing algae that we can. We do that by pruning away infected leaves, and killing algae growths on hardscape and hardware with a bleach solution, peroxide, or mechanically removing it, or all three. I have dipped a few of my plants in a 1 in 20 bleach solution to kill off the remaining algae, with mixed success. My anubias and Java ferns survived it very well, but other plants not so well. I will use that method again, but my primary focus will be trying to find out why I have algae and correct that.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

I followed the instructions for the bleach dip found on this site... http://www.aquariaplants.com/plantdipsbaths.htm

Some plants do fine, others do not. For delicate plants or thin leaf plants you may want to cut down the amount of time they stay in the dip.


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## Jimbo205 (Feb 2, 2006)

HoppyCalif and Trenac. Thank you for the links and the information. With the side effects of using dip, is it safer to us a UV Sterilizer? I don't know a lot about those. Please tell us your opinions on those. Thank you.


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## Tom Higgs (Mar 2, 2006)

Thanks for the info.... improving conditions (i.e an ounce of prevention) is definately the way to go. Just curious about this. I have some anubias that are about 4 years old and the rhizomes are very long and have taken a few twists and turns which gives them a lot of character. If I could get these plants cleaned up the tank would look pretty awesome. As soon as I get a minute I'll post some shots.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

you can also do a spot treatment with excel. That seems to work well. Also, I have found recently that ADA phyton git can work well at removing algae. Heres what you do. Remove the plant with the algae on it or lower the water level below the affected area. Take some phyton git and make a concentrated solution with a bit of water. Get yourself a small paint brush and coat the affected areas with the phtyon git. Let it sit for at least 5 minutes and thats it. Refil the tank. The nice thing about the phyton git is I havent seen it damage a plant. All these other issues can damage a plant.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

What is phyton git?


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

http://www.adgshop.com/product_p/103-103.htm

its an ADA product


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## erijnal (Apr 5, 2006)

I used Excel mixed with water and dipped my plants into the solution for about a minute. BBA turned red and died, and green spot said toodles. My anubias turned out REAL nice after the dip, no adverse affects at all. As a side note, I should mention that I only dipped the leaves and did not expose the roots to the solution. Dunno if dipping the roots would do something bad. A capful of Excel to a cup of water seems to be an effective concentration. I think my cabomba palaeformis, which was already not doing very well, died from this treatment though. Follow hoppy's advice. Identify the problem, correct it, remove your algae via manual removal and/or dipping, and you should be good to go for a looong time.

Jimbo, the UV should only be effective against free-floating algae and pathogens. Since this thread deals with algae that is already established on the plants, the UV would pretty much be useless unless you can somehow find a way to shove a stem through the unit lol, and even then the plant would probably take some long-run damage due to the radiation. Anyway, it seems like most of the algae aquarists fight establish themselves on something, whether it be equipment, substrate, or plants, so the UV would only be useful against something like green water. No side effects given that you're just running tank water through it, but then again, no useful effects either =/


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