Adding Plants to Aquarium

[Elise]

Hello,

I just bought some java moss for my bettas. Now I've heard horror stories about the fish store giving some "gifts" along with live plants that can be harmful to my aquarium. How would you all go about cleaning the plant? Rinsing would be my best quess.

Thank You!

 

[jimbooo]

personally i just plunge new plants into a sink full of hot tap water, swish them about a bit then put in the tank.

the correct answer to your question though is to make up a 1:19 ratio bleach/water solution. dip the plant in it for 3/4 minutes. then immediatly plunge it into HEAVILY dechlorinated tap water (to nutralise the bleach).

then you are 100% safe, all algae, snails, parasites etc will be killed by the bleach, the plant will not be effected unless you leave it in for more than 4 minutes.

that works for all plants of which java moss is one of the toughest so will work fine.

sorry for the late reply, everyone else is obviously asleep.....

 

[houndour]

hmmm...Zig told me 2 minutes dipping. I havent actually tried bleaching, but I've tried all the other methods and they don't work. The hardest bit is killing snails eggs. Does bleach do this?

 

[jimbooo]

yeah 2/3/4 depends who your asking. i would think most things will be killed after 2 minutes so that should still be fine.

i've not done it myself either hondour, as i dunno if my usual bog cleaner is 100% bleach or contains other cleaning agents. i keep meaning to go to wilkinsons to buy a bottle of budget bleach you know the unbranded cheapy stuff. that i'm sure wont contain any surprises.

on the snail eggs front i dunno, i'd guess so as bleach kills most things.

your more than welcome to pop over and dump your plants in with my clown loaches for an hour or so, that is a fool proof method....

hang on whats that in your avatar, surely he does a good job on the snails?

 

[houndour]

hang on whats that in your avatar, surely he does a good job on the snails?

I have 3 striata!! Snails were the reason for getting them, although they are now my favourite fish and wouldnt have a tank (thats big enough) without them. They ate all visible snails overnight. I only ever see a couple of bigger ones that are 2 big for them.

And snails again being the reason I'm getting a puffer for the 5 gallon. And yep, I already have snails in the 5 gallon!

I had a tank a few years back and it was infested with snails. I never ever want to have a snail infested tank again.

 

[zig]

Ok just to clear things up a bit, here the auctual paragraph from the site where i saw this information about dipping.

This is a more effective and sure-fire way to kill algae. It is also very easy to kill the plant in the process. Regular household bleach (i.e. Clorox) is diluted to a 5% (19 parts water to 1 part bleach) solution in a bucket. It's good to have a second bucket filled with rinse water containing 3X the normal dechlor. Dip large leaf plants for 3 minutes, immediately move to the dechlor rinse water, then rinse under running tap water for a few seconds, if you still smell chlorine, repeat the rinse process again. For small delicate leaf plants and mosses dip for only 2 minutes in the bleach. To be safe, add dechlor to the tank after adding the plants back. Also, if your dipping a lot of plants you may need to add more dechlor to your rinse water.

Remember, the bleach dip is a last resort solution. It can and may kill your plants!