BLEACH DOSSING

[spawnerjp]

I know its gonna wierd to start this conversation its started way back in 2019 when I was struggling with algea me and John Rodico is trying to figure out what type of algea is since we havent seen before I was thinking at first was xoming from the the plants that I bought online and infected my tank since I dont share tool with all of my tank so I only have one tank that couse me alot of problem I spend a lot of money buying algea side which has no effect at all then one day I decided to do a Do or Die its a 120p tank made an experment first using all the algeacide I have put them individually in one cup without mixing water on it mean its pure solutions from the bottle and the last one is BLEACH Yes its bleach 2ml of bleach then fill the cup with water guess what the bleach kill the algea 1st while others still not and some took so long to kill it. Now the final decision i poor 3/4 of a gallon on my 120p then run my filter to kill all the algea spores or anything whats inside and the result is see (pictures) after this dossing I was doing an experment with all my tanks but started at small amount till I figure out what I consider safe to my plants so now I dose 40ml on my 120p the process is easy especially with the small tanks but with big tanks that takes a while to drain make sure you start draining after you dose the bleach take as much water you could empty drain and refill it 2-3x and for the last refill double dose your prime and yeah dont forget to clean you filter and if your doing a reset because of algea problem run leave it overnight, there are few of them here that I teach about this that has success

I wish you all to be successfull
if have any other questions you can reach me out on FB (@winstonsumogod) IG (@spawnerjp) Tiktok (@spawner14)
and dont forget my website www.S21Aquatics.com

 

[Freshflora]

Awesome info bro, thanks for sharing. I know that’s how @ryancamaratta finally managed to kill his crazy hair algae haha.

So just to be clear the steps are to:
-dose 40ml per 120p (80 gallons/303 liters).
-100% water change 2-3 times.
-double dose prime on the last refill.

What do you mean leave it overnight? Don’t start the water changes until the next day if you’re completely resetting the tank? Just dose the bleach and let it stay in the tank overnight with the filter running?

 

[KarateQuat]

Awesome info bro, thanks for sharing. I know that’s how @ryancamaratta finally managed to kill his crazy hair algae haha.

So just to be clear the steps are to:
-dose 40ml per 120p (80 gallons/303 liters).
-100% water change 2-3 times.
-double dose prime on the last refill.

What do you mean leave it overnight? Don’t start the water changes until the next day if you’re completely resetting the tank? Just dose the bleach and let it stay in the tank overnight with the filter running?

so I did this too same way he said expect i did it with filter off because i didnt want the filter to get ruined, i now dont have the algae anymore.

 

[spawnerjp]

Awesome info bro, thanks for sharing. I know that’s how @ryancamaratta finally managed to kill his crazy hair algae haha.

So just to be clear the steps are to:
-dose 40ml per 120p (80 gallons/303 liters).
-100% water change 2-3 times.
-double dose prime on the last refill.

What do you mean leave it overnight? Don’t start the water changes until the next day if you’re completely resetting the tank? Just dose the bleach and let it stay in the tank overnight with the filter running?

correct so it could get at the bottom of your substrate

 

[Art]

@spawnerjp thanks for posting, Winston! I've heard of people doing this with Seachem's Excel but not bleach.

 

[spawnerjp]

@spawnerjp thanks for posting, Winston! I've heard of people doing this with Seachem's Excel but not bleach.

@spawnerjp thanks for posting, Winston! I've heard of people doing this with Seachem's Excel but not bleach.

I tried the 1-2 punch still didnt work even blackout for a week, I guess this algea cames from the substrate i notice that most of them use this substrate has the same issues

 

[Art]

I tried the 1-2 punch still didnt work even blackout for a week, I guess this algea cames from the substrate i notice that most of them use this substrate has the same issues

What substrate was it?

 

[spawnerjp]

Landen

 

[ryancamaratta]

So pointing out a couple things: if this method seems really drastic to you, you're not alone. That was my first thought too. But, I didn't discount it, because I know @spawnerjp is a top notch hobbyist with plenty of obvious success (just look at his tanks! )

We talk tanks and other stuff often, and Winston was one of the many people along for the ride when my 120p first started going through what turned out to *not* be simple start up algae. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before and hung around through every fight and non-fight I could give it for four months...yikes, just remembering it makes me cringe.

So anyway, Winston was trying out this bleach method at the time and we talked at length about it, and I made the decision to try it. The only difference in our situations was that I was lucky enough to have had someone try it before me. I took every fish out of the tank...the rainbows were easy peasy but I could probably sell the video of me catching 22 Kuhli loaches as a comedy and make a fortune.

I used a long-tip syringe to dose...honestly I can't remember if it was 40, 50, or 60ml at the time, I'd have to go back and check. I used the syringe so I could try to evenly distribute it in the tank. I turned both my canister filters running, left every piece of both mechanical and biological filtration in them, and cranked them up as high as they would go. Obviously left my reactor and everything else in-line as well, I needed to purge this algae out of anywhere it could be in my system...I didn't want to have to do this twice lol.

I think I let it run for 15 minutes before I started the water change process, which is where pretty much all the actual work took place in this whole process. I kept both canisters running at full blast for the entire duration of the multiple water changes. I did them almost back to back, but waited about 15-20mins in-between each one.

Damn near 100% wc, then refill with tap water that I was adding a double dose of dechlorinator to. I used prime but would've loved to have had Seachem Safe on hand for this. Let run for 15-20 mins, then start another water change. I did six water this way, and on the last refill I used my normal RODI water but still added a double dose of dechlorinator for my tank's volume.

*Keep in mind that a lot of the extra stuff I did here was mainly because I was adding all of my fish back into my tank immediately after this, I didn't have equipment to keep them in a bucket or another tank or something over night, and I was super worried about things still containing chlorine. Especially because as I mentioned earlier, I intentionally left all my media in the canister filters.*

After refilling the tank the final time and dosing the dechlorinator, I think I let everything continue to run full blast for another two hours. Then I turned the filters back down to their usual rate, dosed only what I use to remineralize, and added my bows and loaches back in. Zero fatalities as far as fauna.

I can't give accurate results as to flora losses. My tank was in incredibly, incredibly bad shape due to this algae. Whatever it was would grow almost 20" to the surface of my tank in slightly less than 30 hours. Keep in mind that that persisted for about 4 months. Whatever it was took so many nutrients away from my plant mass, and as a result my plants were pretty frail despite looking okay. I only lost something like two erio spp, 24 pcs of centrolepsis drummondiana, and a stem or something else that I can't recall at the moment. But all things considered I didn't mind one bit, I was prepared to have the whole tank nuke because I figured bleach being injected into a tank would be some pretty heavy stuff but, yeah. I barely lost anything.

The algae did not come back. If you do this, you'll see about half your results right away, and the other half gradually over the next three days or so. I could tell there was a positive change in the tank the same night I tried this, a few hours after the procedure before the lights were going down for the night. And the rest of the algae died over the course of the next three days. On day three, I did two back to back water changes to clear out all the melty algae, and it's one of my biggest "why did I not get that on video" regrets. There were just thick, dense sheets of light grey stuff coming up the siphon tube in waves, it was satisfying. Just all dead, grayed out algae. And that was the last of it.

The tank I tried this on took an incredible amount of time, money, and planning to put up, and I almost didn't get it off the ground because of this crazy algae. For anyone interested, yes: I am personally 100% sure this came from Landen substrate. I've talked to two or three other US hobbyists, one overseas hobbyist, and two more stateside hobbyists since I've come out the other side of this hobby. Out of all of those people, only one of them didn't have a freshly purchased and freshly flooded batch of Landen. I don't normally talk in certainties in this hobby, but yet another person I know and talk with regularly just set up a fresh Landen tank and, lo and behold, the same algae.

Winston saved my ass with this method, it's literally the reason this tank is still up today, because after four months of that crap I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to weigh in with my experience on the procedure seeing as I'm sure a lot of people will second guess the extreme of dosing bleach into a tank, but it definitely worked for me with literally (and surprisingly!) zero negative side effects.

Note: when I was trying to ID the algae I was struggling with in the 120p, I tried to purposely infect another one of my tanks. It worked. That was a 20 long with a completely different substrate, different plants and equipment, etc. I successfully used the bleach method on that tank, but I cut out all the extra steps I'd taken on the 120p. On the 20 long I just did three back to back water changes with tap, dosed a double dose of prime on the last one, fired up all the equipment again, and dosed my normal full ferts etc. That tank was also an instant success with all of the algae dying between the first day and the following three days. The losses in that tank (which were from an already healthy plant mass) can be paid attention too, unlike the losses from my 120p which I don't count seeing as there's no way to tell what did them in. Only losses in the 20 long were half of a small group of Blyxa Japonica, which also melts if I sneeze close to it sometimes fwiw

 

[GreggZ]

Wow I've heard of a lot of methods to beat algae over the years but I can safely say I have never heard of THIS one!! I have heard of people bleach dipping individual plants but never bleaching the whole tank. Sounds crazy to me but hey, if it worked, it worked. Not sure I would recommend it to everyone as you two are experienced hobbyists.

If anyone else tries this method I would love to hear more.

 

[Art]

@ryancamaratta thanks for posting your experience with this. It really does help others when they are at their wits end. Also, thanks to @spawnerjp for the post and details on how to do this.

I've always thought that algae is much quicker to capitalize on instability due to their ability to make quick use of nutrients. This ability, however, also makes them vulnerable to things that can kill them like bleach, glutaraldehyde, etc.