bleach, is this true?

[tropicfishman]

this one site I read aquarium articles on had a thing about tank maintence. it was talking about scraping glass of algea, filter maitence, gravel cleaning, etc. etc. then I noticed something, it had a section on live plants, it said to clean live plants you could mix a certain percentage of bleach to water and bleach plants clean, just not the roots or stems. is this actually possible??????? wouldn't the bleach even in a small concentration kill the plants or strip them of color some how???? just seems odd to me

 

[blazeyreef]

scraping glass off algea,

wow, how do you do that?

sorry I had to!

but yes, I have heard of dipping the plants etc. it is a risk and it may or may not kill the plants, it just depends on the plant and if you do it right or not. I have never personally done it but have read of people on the forum doing so

 

[Burks]

A 20:1 water/bleach solution is used for dipping plants to rid them of unwanted pests and algae.

Be warned though, certain plants will die doing this. I killed off a baseball sized portion of Java Moss using this method. It was barely a 5 second soak. Do so at your own risk.

 

[gu2high]

To clean plant? Do you mean to kill any parasites on the plant?

 

[Zagz]

To clean algae and hitchhikers like unwanted snails.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Moved to the Planted Forum since this is a discussion regarding plants.

 

[tropicfishman]

I'm not planning on doing this, I just thought it was a crazy idea lol and I meant scrape algea off glass LOL my bad lol

 

[Sicklid]

Bleach is toxic to anything at certain levels. 20 parts to 1 part water is enought ot knock off bugs and algae, but keep some plants intact for a short dip. Same with peroxide.

 

[travis simonson]

I have done this numerous times with my plants. 5% bleach, 95% water. Mix it in a bowl. Dip your plants for 1-2 minutes at most, holding them in the water and swishing it around their leaves (as was said, not the roots) This is nearly guaranteed to kill any algae they may have but may also kill the plant. Most plants can handle this although Crypts, mosses and other fine-leaved plants do not fare well. It is a measure of last resort.

If you do decide to bleach-dip your plants make sure you rinse them well and then dip them in a bath of dechlorinator-dosed water before returning them to the tank. Do NOT take these measures lightly unless you have no recourse.

 

[Peyton]

I tried the bleach dip solution one time and got too strong a mix. Ended up doing this to anachris.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b207/peglegburnout/tank6282006.jpg



Only one stem actually lived through that.