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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #46



Keith  <breedofish at aol_com> wrote May 2:

>Dan, I have had this happen to one of my tanks.  CUT those leaves off
>immediately.  I waited and it took over an entire 55 gallon tank, not a
>pretty sight.  Supposedly, SAE's will eat the stuff, but SAE are hard to find
>(that's what I was waiting for, while the algae destroyed my tank).  You
>could try a 2-3 minute 5% bleach solution bath (I did, worked for a while,
>but then there were too many plants as time went on).  Best solution, remove
>that plant and hope nothing else gets it.  As I sit here typing, I wonder if
>a temporary use of a UV sterilizer would eliminate the algae spores, maybe
>some one else might have some insight into this.  Hope everything works out.


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 Krombholz                  Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, MS  39174