Sanitiizing Plants

[Underwurlde]

Sanitizing New Plants

Plants can carry fungus, bacteria, snails, algae, and diseases.
Hence I would like to know if this is good measure for disinfecting new plants:

ALUM (Aluminium Potassium Sulfate): Snails and their eggs can be removed with a 2-day bath in alum using 1-2 tablespoons and one Gallon of water. (Alum powder, found amongst spices at most grocery stores, is used in pickling recipies as a preservative. May also available at Chemistis and Pool stores)

BLEACH (Sodium Hypochlorite)
Remove contamination of any algae growth by dipping the plant in a 1:20 bleach solution for not more than 2-3 minutes. Do NOT dip the roots.
A 1 in 5 dilution of household bleach with water (1 part bleach to 4 parts water) is effective against many bacteria and some viruses.

The plant should then be immediately rinsed in running water to remove the bleach solution.
After rinsing under running water the plant should be immersed in de-chlorinated water, which should neutralize any remaining bleach. (Apparently Sodium Thiosulfate is an effective chlorine neutralizer. Rinse afterwards with a 5mg/L solution).

FLUBENOL 15
Flubenol 15 is safe with ALL plants in fact it would be a good idea to soak all new plants in a solution of Flubenol 15 to prevent introducing snails to your tank. Flubenol15 is beneficial to your filter and cannot destroy the bacteria.
http/www.flubenol.co.uk/

[update:] Sadly now, 'Flubenol 15' not available any more, but a Flubenol based product is however available, called ‘Wormer Plus’, see:
http/www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.php?...products_id=140


Potassium Permanganate (Kills Snails & Bacteria):
A bath in Potassium Permanganate will kill everything, bacterial & snails alike. Potassium Permanganate is strong and only a few granules are required to turn the water purple. When using Potassium Permanganate, make a strong solution and soak the entire plant, including the roots, for about 15-30 minutes. Then add dechlorinator, which will neutralize the Potassium Permanganate solution and turn the water brown. This will also stain the eggs if there are any. Although Potassium Permanganate will supposedly kill the eggs, remove them as well, just in case.

Get Potassium Permanganate from:
[URL="http/www.gardendirect.co.uk"]http/www.gardendirect.co.uk[/URL]


WAIT
Commercially available plants should be kept without fish, which will eliminate the risk of introducing diseases. If in doubt a 3 week holding period will eliminate most threatening diseases such as velvet or ICH due to the lack of a host.

RINSE
Finally rinse your plants with old tank water before introducing them to the tank.


Additions, errors, corrections, ideas, comments please.

Andy

PS
I know NOTHING of chemistry that a Google search has not told me!

 

[George Farmer]

Sounds fine to me.

I've never done any of the above though. Plants straight in, no problems except a few snails that are easily dealt with.

 

[JamesC]

It is highly recommended to rinse the plants in water first as a lot of distributers treat their plants in copper solution. Know somebody who lost all their shrimp after putting some new plants in their tank.

If you don't like snails then the bleach method works well. Some plants don't fare too well though.

James

 

[George Farmer]

It is highly recommended to rinse the plants in water first as a lot of distributers treat their plants in copper solution.

Best start rinsing then. I never knew that. You'd thought that would be common knowledge..........

 

[Themuleous]

Yeh I got told that when I got some plants from greenline, apparently lots of places use copper treatments to remove snails! I guess the only thing is that if you buy from a shop as opposed to direct from the supplier as in the case of greenline, then the plants will have been sitting in the shops tanks for a day or two at least so the treatment should already have washed off.

All that said, the plants I got from greenline still had snails on them! So fat lot of use the copper treatment did anyway!

Sam

 

[JamesC]

Best start rinsing then. I never knew that. You'd thought that would be common knowledge..........

I normally order from Greenline and if you look at their Terms and Conditions 4th paragraph you'll see what they say about copper. Other places do it too but seem to keep a bit quiet about it. Must admit I used to just bung the plants in till I found out.

James

 

[Underwurlde]

It is highly recommended to rinse the plants in water first as a lot of distributers treat their plants in copper solution. Know somebody who lost all their shrimp after putting some new plants in their tank.

Just the kind of information I'm after, thanks!

All that said, the plants I got from greenline still had snails on them! So fat lot of use the copper treatment did anyway!

I have been shot down for this before but those copper products should be banned / boycotted. I have found they don't actually work as well & you just end up loosing money and poisioning your tank.

Andy

 

[George Farmer]

Best start rinsing then. I never knew that. You'd thought that would be common knowledge..........

I normally order from Greenline and if you look at their Terms and Conditions 4th paragraph you'll see what they say about copper. Other places do it too but seem to keep a bit quiet about it. Must admit I used to just bung the plants in till I found out.

James

I will include this copper issue in a future PFK article. It definitely should be common knowledge. I wonder how many others have unwittingly introduced potentially lethal copper levels into their tanks.

 

[Dave Spencer]

I have noticed that Aquaessentials quote 0.23% Copper in there trace elements dry powder. Would it be easy to overdose with this and kill any invertibrates in the tank?

 

[Underwurlde]

I hope that info gets pinned somehow....

 

[Themuleous]

I have noticed that Aquaessentials quote 0.23% Copper in there trace elements dry powder. Would it be easy to overdose with this and kill any invertibrates in the tank?

I dont think its the copper on its own, its lethal as a compound. Farmers can use copper compounds to kill terrestrial mollusc's, so copper itself I wouldn't think would be a problem, only in a compound is it toxic.

Well that's what I would have thought, copper is an essential element for growth after all.

Sam

 

[atmmachine816]

Bleach 1:19 ratio, 30sec. not 2-3min. you'l probably kill the plants more than anything else. I was going to write how to kill snails but I guess you beat me to it, I'll add my two cents in a week when I get time off or before time permitting. Ya you should always wash your plants before to get rid of snail eggs and clean them, no telling what was in the water where they were before.

Overall sounds pretty good

Austin

 

[Dave Spencer]

I have recently planted a brand new tank with plants from Greenline. Four days later I have had to squish three very young looking snails. Doubtless, there are many more in the pipe line, so how should I get rid of the imminent snails, bearing in mind I hope to introduce a few invertibrates in the tank fairly soon?

 

[Themuleous]

The only way to completely get rid of them is to have a snail eating fish in the tank, most loaches will eat snails, so one of the smaller species is an idea if you've got a small tank. I've heard dwarf cichlids eat snails too.

If you dont want one of these fish, then snails are often a sign of over feeding, in which case just reduce the amount you feed and that should at least prevent them getting out of control.

FYI did you remove the bodies of the ones you squashed? Probably best to if not as the decomposing bodies will introduce lots of nutrients into the tank and could cause algae.

Sam

 

[JamesC]

Bleach 1:19 ratio, 30sec. not 2-3min.

30 seconds is probably too short IMO. 2-3 minutes for most plants is fine but for the more delicate then 1.5 minutes. I know because I've done it many times myself (along with many others) with no problems. Some plants do take a slight 'hit' but soon recover. Some people even recommend 5 minutes but I would think that this is too long.

James