Urgent Fantail

[Yazan]

Is bleach soap?

 

[GoldLenny]

No, bleach is Sodium Hypochlorite in a solution with water. Soap is made up of many different chemicals... none of which are Sodium hypochlorite unless it's some kind of specialty soap that advertises "With Bleach" or something like that.

 

[aquaticadmirer]

Sodium hypochlorite is NaOCl, or one sodium, one oxygen, and one chlorine molecule, which is why dechlorinator works wonderfully to neutralize it.

 

[Yazan]

So it's safe to use?

 

[aquaticadmirer]

It's safe to use for cleaning or sterilizing as long as you use an adequate amount of dechlorinator before you expose live animals to anything that has come into contact with it. I also use bleach to get algae off of decorations when they get grungy looking but I just make sure I use plenty of dechlorinator before putting them back in.

 

[GoldLenny]

When using bleach solution... a 1/10th or 1/20th solution is sufficient... you should rinse, rinse, rinse and then rinse some more until you don't smell any bleach. Then soak in enough water with a triple dose of dechlor.

If you use Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2), you only have to rinse once and it becomes inert since HP is basically oxygenated water and when it bubbles, it loses the extra O molecule. People add HP directly to tanks with fish in them where you could never do this with bleach.

 

[aquaticadmirer]

Hydrogen peroxide is not as good of a sterilizer as bleach because most bacteria that respire using oxygen, like Staph bacteria, have an enzyme called catalase that breaks the hydrogen peroxide down into oxygen and water. When you put hydrogen peroxide on a cut and see bubbles, this actually means that it's not working because the bacteria are just breaking the hydrogen peroxide down into water and oxygen, which are the bubbles that you see.

With hydrogen peroxide you have to make sure you use an adequate amount to flood the bacteria with a load that's too great for the catalase to handle (i.e. you don't see bubbles anymore). With bleach, only a small amount kills most living things it comes into contact with.