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Bearded Algae problems

In a message dated 96-05-03 17:06:47 EDT, Paul wrote:

>Keith, I am wondering what you meant when you said that "there were too
>many plants as time went on".  Does that mean that you pulled out the
>plants, treated them, but had to keep retreating them because the beard
>algae got back on them?
>
>I currently do not have any hair algae in my tanks, and I purchased some
>plants last summer that were covered with beard algae.  I gave them the
>bleach treatment, and the beard algae has not showed up and appears to be
>gone for good.  If you pull plants out of a tank that has hair algae, and
>treat them with bleach solution, they will not stay free of hair algae very
>long if they are put back in a tank that has the hair algae.  The bleach
>treatment is hard on aquatic plants, and, therefore, it makes the most
>sense to put treated plants in a tank that is free of hair algae so you
>don't have to worry about it any more.
>
>
Paul,

     What I meant about "too many plants" is that originally the
beard-staghorn algae hybrid (whatever it was) was on a limited number of
plants, and it was simply to remove those plants and perform a bleach bath on
them.  Unfortunately, the algae spread to the rest of my tank (w/ a
vermiculite and clay substrate), and massive plant uprouting would have
created a very large mess.  I don't believe that the algae was hair algae but
something else.  I tried finding a SAE, but I couldn't find one locally.  So
I waited and did everything I could, more CO2, more water changes, clip that
leaf, clip this leaf.  Of course I could've gave up and broken down the tank,
but then I would have never learned anything about treating the algae.
 Unfortunately, I bought a copy of Amano's Aquarium World and decided that my
tank had no style.  So after 3 months of trying to eradicate this algae, I
finally gave up, and broke down my tank.  Now it is looking beautiful and now
I quarantine all new plants.  I believe that you are correct, put treated
plants in an algae-free tank and you eliminate a lot of the hassle.  But of
course some of us like to find that out on our own :-)

     - Keith   Breedofish at aol_com