dipping in bleach?

[Ds11375]

Hi All

I was just wondering how to clean my plants with bleach. I have a 2 gallon bucket that I would be using to clean/dip them in.

Dan

[Oqsy]

a common method is to mix water and bleach, 20:1, and soak your tougher plants for about 5 minutes, more delicate ones for a minute or two, and rinse thoroughly with cool water.

i have heard of people making the solution stronger, but very few living things are resistant to bleach, and soft stem plants can melt very quickly.

i used to use the bleach dip above (20:1) on everything going into my tank, but now I only use it if there is visible algae,etc on the plant(s). Instead I typically just do a very very thorough rinse in chlorinated tap water, and rub all the leaves top and bottom with my fingertips under the running water. new plants seem to perk up and take off faster than after a bleach bath, and i've yet to develop a snail or algae problem from adding new plants.

I *will* bleach dip my anubias on occasion as they're leaves get gunk on them from being such slow-growers and in a relatively high-light tank. rinse them just as mentioned above, rubbing each leaf thoroughly top and bottom in cool water.

Oqsy

[Candymaker]

In regards to dipping - would dipping some plants in a small cup of Excel Flourish do the same? I don't want to add a lot of excel to my tank because I get that melting of some of the plants, and would rather not deal with that, but at the same time, putting bleach on something that my fish hang around frightens me.

[Ds11375]

I don't know about the Excel thing, but I dipped my plants in a mix of 20 cups of water to one cup of bleach and have not had any fish or plants die.

Dan