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Re: bleach treatment



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>
>From: Mike Bateman <vandi at well_com>
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 20:42:09 -0800
>Subject: Re: 5% Bleach Treatment
>
>> You may have to resort to the bleach treatment.  it is drastic, but it
>> gets rid of hair algae forever.
>
>Thanks for the input, Paul.  I'm sure bleach would do the trick, but I
>don't think *I* can weather such a drastic treatment.  That would mean
>an aweful lot of work.  Plus I'd have to find new sources for some of my
>delicate plants.  I've bleached plants before and some just never want
>to recover.  Rotala, Cabomba, Java Moss, etc all are too delicate and
>have always suffered greatly from bleach treatments.  The Java Moss I
>ended up tossing anyway because it looked so bad and was impossible to
>clean of algae.
>
>Also, I wouldn't ID this algae as Hair algae.  It is closer to what
>Baensch calls filamentous algae.  It looks and feels exactly like a
>spider web.  Baensch states that its requirements are closest to those
>of higher plants and usually only occurs in conditions that are also
>optimum for plants.  He gives no sure fire cure either, other than to
>say sometimes it goes away on its own.  I can only pray.
>
......<rest deleted>.......

I define hair algae as anything having a rather harsh or tough feel when
you rub it between your fingers.  Pond and ramshorn snails can't eat it.
Filamentous algae are any where the cells are arranged end to end in
filaments.  This includes my group of hair algae, but also some soft types
that snails can eat.

If your algae is like those messy or untidy spider webs that have no
regular repeating arrangement, then it may be Rhizoclonium (not sure of
spelling and too lazy to look it up). If it has a symmetrical structure, it
might be Hydrodictyon (almost certainly misspelled), aka, water net.  It is
a roughly tubular net with six-sided openings in the mesh.

>For the really delicate plants, 2 minutes is the maximum bleach treatment.
>It gets rid of most hair algae with the probable exception of Cladophora.
>I have successfully treated Rotala, Cabomba and Java moss, although I was
>surprised to see that the Java moss made it.  The secret of getting these
>delicate plants to survive the bleach treatment is to have a nice tank
>with good conditions---high CO2, light, and iron (and all the non-hair
>algae, green water, soft attached under control)---ready to put the
>treated plants in immediately after treatment.

Paul Krombholz                  Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, MS  39174
Where the spring beauties are blooming and winter (the two days we had that
you could call winter) is hardly a memory.