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Bleaching



Hello all,

All this talk of bleaching led me to give it a try.  I have a "tiny tank" (5
gallon) set up with 1 Anubias baterii, 3 - Anubias nana and 3 small Crypt's.
in which I could not get the "fur algae" under control.  The substrate
consisted of 1-1.5 inches of sifted backyard soil under 1-1.5 inches of
gravel (sandblasting grit).  I have 16 watts of cool white fluorescent light
over the tank.  I had about 8 ramshorn and 6 MTS snails, 1 SAE and 5 black
mollies all for algae control.  However, these measures were not doing the
job.  So yesterday I bleached everything.  Now I have set up the tank again
and there is no apparent live algae.  However, the previous algae that was
on the plants is now dead (greyish-white) but it is still attached to the
plants.  I tried to scrub as much of the dead algae off before I put them
back into the tank, but it was impossible to get it all off.  What I am
wanting to know is:

    1.  Will the dead algae eventually come off of the plants?
    2.  If I put my army of algae control agents back into the aquarium will
they eat the dead algae, and if so will it harm them?

If this bleaching technique works for me I have another 30 gallon planted
tank with a much more worse algae problem which I will tackle next.

Thanks,

Dan H. Foley III
Utah State University
Department of Biology

wildlife at biology_usu.edu