Re: Bleach and red algae

To: Aquatic-Plants <Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com>
Subject: Re: Bleach and red algae
From: Todd Ellerbee <Todd_Ellerbee.DBS at dbsnotes_dbsoftware.com>
Date: 10 Aug 95 8:34:50 EDT

>> Paul said...
>> >I've been harping that y'all should not tolerate red algae
>> >or any other kind of hair algae, and that you can get rid of it forever with
>> >5% bleach.
>> >---------------------------
>> 
>I tried using bleach on some of the worst affected plants. Although the 
>algae is easily killed and none of the plants seem to be hurt, the 
>algae comes back in a week or so. I guess I will have to up root all of 
>the plants and treat all of them. I probably also have to empty the tank 
>and bleach everything, including the filter and start all over to be sure 
>to get rid of all the red algae spores. This sounds like a drastic way to 
>solve the problem. Any comments?

> John Y. Ching (jyching at watnow_uwaterloo.ca)    |
> Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence Lab | 
> Department of Systems Design Engineering       | 
> University of Waterloo, Canada             |

I have what may be a silly question, as I haven't tried either bleaching my 
algae on the plants or boiling my driftwood (yet), but here goes:

How do you remove this algae once it's dead?  Once you've bleached the plants, 
do you snip off the affected leaves or do you just place it back into the 
aquarium with the now-dead algae still attached?  Same with the driftwood - do 
you try to clean off the dead algae?  Alive, this stuff is a royal pain to 
remove...

Thanks.

Todd