Testing Alka Seltzer and Copper to Clean a Bird Bath

As much as we all love to see birds splashing around in a bird bath, bacteria and grime will soon make it not such a pleasant sight.  For today’s project, I am testing Alka Seltzer and copper to clean a bird bath.

I have several bird baths in my garden beds.  I just love to sit and watch the birds having a bath in them and enjoying themselves. 

They sometimes even fight over who goes first, which is funny to watch.  (The big fat robin always wins!)

But cleaning the bird bath is a chore that is hard to keep on top of.   If I forget about it for a while, I end up with lots of brown algae every time. 

I am always looking for easy ways to keep my bird baths clean.  This is what one of mine looked like recently:

It had not been cleaned for a little while and looked ugly.  I’ve tried cleaning the bird bath using chlorox, but even though I rinse it well, I’m concerned that the residue, if any, might harm the birds. 

I have read that copper keeps algae from growing in a bird bath and that alka seltzer tablets will clean it.  I wanted to test this theory.

My test involved three ingredients:  two alka seltzer tablets,  (affiliate link) a scrubbing brush, and some small pieces of copper pipe. (79c each at Lowe’s.)

I’ve tried alka seltzer to clean a toilet bowl in the bathroom and it worked well.  I also researched the effect of alka seltzer on birds and came up with an old wives tale about the effect of it on them. 

Snopes has debunked the myth that it it harmful to them.   My feeling is that the amount is very small and I’ll be rinsing it very well after cleaning, so the residue will be minimal.

Alka seltzer tablets contain baking soda as a main ingredient, so this could also be used if you don’t have the tablets. See more ways to use baking soda in the garden here.

The first thing I did was scrub over the bird bath lightly with a brush and then add the alka seltzer tablets.    The tablets did, indeed, clean what the brush missed.  Then I rinsed the bird bath thoroughly several times to get rid of any residue.

The next thing I did was to add two small pieces of copper pipe into the clean water.  I have read that copper is a natural algaecide and will repel the algae that forms over time so I wanted to test this theory. 

(Some people swear that copper pennies in the bird bath also work.)  The bird bath in the back yard got the copper and the one in my front yard did not.  I wanted to see the difference.

This is my bird bath a week later.  The copper did, indeed, seem to keep the algae at bay and the back yard bird feeder was definitely cleaner than the front after a week.

TEST RESULTS AFTER A LONGER TIME:   I left the bird baths as they were for a longer time (about two weeks).  The front bird bath had much more algae in it and the back one stayed much cleaner. 

Did it keep the algae totally away?  The answer is yes and no.  The back bird bath had much less algae build up in it but still needs periodic cleaning with a scrubbing brush, although the job is much easier in the bird bath which has the copper in it.

What techniques have you used to clean your bird bath?  How effective were they?  Let us know in the comment section below.

For another way to clean a cement bird bath, be sure to watch the video connected to this post.

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