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Re: BGA Algae



I thought I would post a rather unorthodox treatment that recently made
short work of a BGA problem that I had.  I remembered reading that BGA
was suspected to thrive in low ORP environments.  This explains why
areas of low flow or tanks with low oxygenation tend to have the worst
BGA problems.  I was at the grocery store and picked up a bottle of
hydrogen peroxide (a strong oxidizer).  I was getting it becasue I was
told that it is handy to quickly oxygenate the water for whatever
reason.  FOr the chemistry types out there peroxide (H2O2) will quickly
break down to two water atoms and a free oxygen.  Apparently the
oxidizing properties are a result of some intermediate step where two
free oxygen atoms become an O2.  These free atoms can react with other
chemicals.  

In my tank, I had a pretty bad BGA problem.  I have a 55g with 2 discus,
a school of xray tetras, two clown loaches, an 4 plecos.  I have 2 40W
fluorecents with Chroma 50 bulbs.  I started by adding about 4 oz of the
peroxide directly to my tank.  The results were unbelievable.  WIthin a
day, the algae had seemed to almost melt away and was almost half gone. 
At this point, about 24 hours later, I added a bit.  This brings me to
my sole warning.  It appears that I added a bit too much.  There was no
long term damage, but I did manage to burn the scales on my discus. 
They were quite black, but more active then they had been in a long
time.  The otehr inhabitants appeared unaffected.  It has been about
three weeks since I treated and there has been no recurrence.

Mark Storch
mscc at andrew_cmu.edu