Will they trigger BGA attack?

[Jer-]

Hi all

I got my 112L yesterday from my friends as a bday present. They have also given me a very generous amount in store credit so that made my day.

anyways... i went back home for the long holidays for uni and left my tank under supervision of this friend of mine.

I came back to find that the tank has turned into an algea pool... full of Blue Green Algea, everyones worst nightmare.

anyways, enough of that. Now that i have a new tank i would still like to use the old gravel from the algea tank...

i have cleaned it many times yet some of the bits of gravel look green. I would really like to set up my new tank as soon as possible but am afraid that the green bits of gravel may trigger another BGA attack. Is this possible??

I was thinking maybe i shud buy new gravel (which i will need as im upgrading from 60L to 112L) and cover the old gravel so that the old gravel gets no light and the algea may not be triggered again??

what are ur thoughts

thanks

 

[houndour]

from experience I would not use anything that has touched the bga infected tank. I put in plants from my bga infected tank that I thought were clean and infected the second tank.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid...just not worth the risk.

 

[Jer-]

anymore thoughts??

thx houndour

 

[rdd1952]

You could leave it in a bucket (or spread it out on something) and let it dry. That would kill anything that was on it. That would mean the gravel wouldn't be of any help in seeding your new tank as the bacteria would die off. I would be very careful trying to use any filters or media from the old tank to seed the new one too. As houndour said, you don't want to transfer the bga to the new tank.

 

[zig]

You could bleach dip the gravel, 1 part bleach to 19 parts water, this should kill the bga, although its not an algae its a type of bacteria, but im sure 5 minutes in a bleach dip would do the trick, rinse the gravel in a bucket of water with 3x the recommended amount of dechlorinator afterwards, this will neutralise the bleach, but run it under a tap also to make sure all traces are gone (use your nose) and let the gravel dry out naturally and then i would say it would be ok.

 

[Jer-]

I have decided to experiment and bake the gravel dry. I will leave it in the oven for 30 minutes per tray. This should kill off EVERYTHING!

Does it sound like a good plan?