# velvet



## gypsydancer (Feb 10, 2012)

Does anyone know if bleach will kill velvet on plants. I know it must be a weak solution and rinsed off fairly quickly.


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## Crazy (Mar 1, 2012)

from what I understand a 1:30 bleach ratio is used on plants and then soaked for an hour in triple strength delcor water. However I have never had to kill velvet using this method.


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## gypsydancer (Feb 10, 2012)

Another question I have is, should I use boiling water on my substrate or mcrowave it to kill the velvet? I have too much $ invested in it to just toss it.


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## ArtyG (Jun 29, 2011)

Bleach, in any concentration, is what I use when I want to kill everything. I would be very careful to avoid such drastic means.


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

Velvet is everywhere - it sounds to me like you are burning down the house because someone in it had the flu. Not only does this seem a waste of energy, but it won't be very effective either.


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## gypsydancer (Feb 10, 2012)

This isn't the first time this tank has had a problem. Last time I lost almost $300.00 worth of guppies. The only thing I didn't remove from the tank was the substrate.


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

Over the years I have kept fish, I've had velvet in tanks dozens of times with tons of losses. You are probably contributing to the velvet with the cleaning - that's the point I'm putting out for discussion.
Velvet is present most of the time, but it can't attack the fish unless they are stressed or already weakened. 

You need to find out whether your water is hard or soft. A first indicator can be pH, although that is very broad. Your guppies are Poecilia, a Genus that does poorly in soft water, as it tends to produce very little protective skin slime in inappropriate water. Skin slime is the first line of defence against... velvet.

Even if the water is hard, not changing 25% or more at least every second week is an invitation to velvet. How's your maintenance regime?

If the cycle in the tank is destroyed by overly zealous cleaning, then ammonia will do the same thing. Velvet is rarely a primary problem, it is an opportunistic parasite that attacks the weak.

You need to figure out the weakness. Here, it's my very soft tapwater combined with my bad habit of overfeeding fry. Your cause may be different. But ultimately, the time spent identifying it will be better than the time spend needlessly cleaning.


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