Getting plants to be shrimp safe

[seangee]

I am shortly going to plant up a cycled nano tank (15G) in preparation for adding RCS. This will be the first time I will be keeping shrimp. Most of these plants will be bought online and I am concerned about pesticides as I am going for Asian species. I have seen various conflicting advice about treating the plants prior to adding to the tank. Should I or shouldn't I?

In either case how long will it take before the plants are "safe" if I do daily water changes? Since the tank is empty (and small) there wouldn't be a problem with 90% daily changes if that is what is advised.

 

[Colin_T]

If you buy aquarium plants online from someone in your own country, it is highly unlikely they will have pesticides or chemicals on them. Aquarium plant growers do not use chemicals because they poison the fish and they go out of business real fast if they start killing everyone's fish.

If you buy plants from Asia, they may or may not have chemicals on them. In which case I would rinse any new plants off well and then keep them in a quarantine tank/ container and change all the water every day for a month. If there is anything on the plants it will leach into the water and be diluted when you change the water.

If you buy tissue culture plants they will not have anything on them.

All fish and plants should be quarantined for a month before being used in a tank with fish or shrimp to prevent unwanted diseases being introduced to the aquarium. The only exception is tissue cultured plants. They can go straight in.

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Aquatic plants can tolerate 100% water changes with straight tap water. Shrimp and fish will tolerate 90% water changes as long as the new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine and has a similar temperature and chemistry to the tank water.

 

[fluttermoth]

All aquatic plants being imported into the UK have to be treated with a pesticide. It is not dangerous to fish, at all, but is very quickly lethal to shrimps.

If you can't buy shrimp safe plants (which if you look on ebay you should be able to, a lot of the shrimp sellers also sell plants, as do many hobbyists), then you can neutralise the pesticide by keeping the plants in very alkaline water for three or four days (I was told this by a very trusted poster on the old PFK forum; I can't remember who now, but I'm sure it's correct info).

If you're going to be doing a fishless cycle in your nano tank, then you could just up the pH with something like bicarbonate of soda right at the start (which would help your cycle anyway) and your plants should be quite safe by the end of the cycle.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I agree with Fluttermoth that plants bought online, if coming from overseas that its very likely to have been treated with pesticides and possibly even other types of treatments.

The safest way to purchase plants is tissue culture plants, like tropica for example are perfectly good and I have bought plants this way and have had no issues whatso ever, a bonus is that with tissue cultered plants is that there will be no snails at all so one less thing to worry about for some folks (i like snails )

Another option is to buy aquatic plants on fish forums, other fishkeepers or locally through gumtree or facebook etc etc, not guaranteed of good plants, but at least you do get the option to see the plants first before handing over any cash, I have done this in the past with success.

And lastly, your local LFS will have plants as well so thats another source where you may think it SHOULD be safe to purchase.

So theres a number of options, and to be entirely honest i have never really worried about buying plants locally or from other hobbiests as most fishkeepers are pretty trustworthy (well at least for me so far).

 

[seangee]

If you're going to be doing a fishless cycle in your nano tank, then you could just up the pH with something like bicarbonate of soda right at the start (which would help your cycle anyway) and your plants should be quite safe by the end of the cycle.

Thanks. Bicarb is one of the treatments I have read about. Cycle is currently in progress and I am a 12 hour flight from home . Plants are all on order with delivery requested after my return.

Some of the plants I have ordered are from tissue culture but most are imported. These claim to be shrimp safe but I don't want to take any chances. Do you happen to know what is the optimum pH? Ideal scenario seems to be to plant the tank and add bicarb and ferts which would allow the plants to start growing. 100% water change after a week and then add some daphnia. If they are still alive after 24 hours add shrimp - or have I over simplified that?

 

[fluttermoth]

The ideal pH is over 8.5ppm, IIRC.

No, I don't think you've over simplified things, although I'd be waiting longer than a week, if it was me, but then I'm chronically overcautious

 

[seangee]

The ideal pH is over 8.5ppm, IIRC.

No, I don't think you've over simplified things, although I'd be waiting longer than a week, if it was me, but then I'm chronically overcautious

Ha ha. I'm cautious but also impatient. Think I need a change of plan. Original idea was to add the RCS, let nature take its course and then add a school of CPD later.

Seems more sensible to get the fish in first. That way by the time the plants have grown sufficiently to provide enough cover for some of the shrimplets to survive the pesticide should be long gone.

 

[seangee]

Ha ha. I'm cautious but also impatient.

For once my impatience has paid off. Went to LFS yesterday and managed to get everything I wanted except blyxa. Not sure how well this will work in low light without CO2 but I found some that is shrimp safe on eBay - so will be trying it.

In confirmation that what I bought is shrimp safe the daphnia that hitch hiked in with them are still going strong over 24 hours later. So my next trip to LFS will be to collect some RCS - just as well cos they have no stock of CPD at the moment.