Valonia vs Bleach - Round 1 - Ding! Ding!

[Myka]

[[[[For my own reference: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...ture/index.php]]]]

I will kill you, you $#%^&@% Valonia %$#$* one way or another!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >:-(



It's been over a year's battle with Valonia. I removed all my rocks and "cooked" them in a Rubbermaid for like 12 weeks in the dark about a year ago. Although the phosphate was completely undetectible with a D-D MERC phosphate kit, and the Valonia was nowhere to be seen when I put it back in the tank...IT CAME BACK!!! With a vengeance. I was doing weekly waterchanges manually removing it for 6 MONTHS, still didn't work.

After all that, I had a breeder trap in the tank with 30 baby Bangaii in it contributing to MASSIVE over-stocking...which only made matters worse. Then I had hair algae too! So, once a week I would patiently take scissors, and trim back my HA forest so I could see my (surprisingly) happy corals again, and remove as much Valonia as I could find. This made for 60% waterchanges...haha. Anyway, the baby Bangers aren't in there anymore, so the HA has 95% disappeared, but the #$&#@$&@#$@#($%!&#$% Valonia...dear God what did I do?????????? *pulls hair out*

Ya, so I'm going to remove all my rocks and bleach em. I know there's other ways...like a blow torch. Although a blow torch sounds like WAAAAAAAAAAAY too much fun, and absolutely satisfying(!!!!), I don't have a torch and I'm too lazy to go buy one for $6 because holy hell it's hot out there and my car doesn't have ac. BUT, I have BLEACH!!!

So...any comments on the ratio of bleach:RO/DI water and the length of dip time would be grandly appreciated!! I'm hoping to find the fine line where I can kill ALL surface life, but keep the anaerobic bacteria inside the rock intact. Hmmm...

Oh, and I have lots of Prime on hand to neutralize this devastating natural disaster that is about to happen!!! Bleach is natural after all - errr maybe not.