Quarantine of new plants

[lizhien]

I've bought a new plant from seaview. It's some plants tied to a piece of coconut husk and grown.

Should i quarantine the plants? If so, how should i do it? I just put them in a bucket of aged water.

Any bros can offer advice? Do you quarantine your new plants too? What happens if i just rinse them and put them straight into the tank?

[Jianyuan]

I think i got the same plant as you. i put them in a seperate tank with aged water for a few days, after that i add my yamato in for a few day to see if its safe enough to put them into the main tank itself.

Never know if any chemicals were sprayed onto the plants itself. Better be safe.

[lizhien]

Haha.. true. I'm also worried about pest snails. The previous plant that i got from seaview, i put in straight away. Within a couple of weeks i had a serious snail problem. Killed off all my plants.

[Jianyuan]

Oh ya, and also snail and algae problem. Dont want to contaminate your tank with all these problems due to negligence on our part :P

[lizhien]

Yup.. But how long is good enough before we can put the new plants in? Don't want them dying due to light starvation.

[stormhawk]

Get a bottle of potassium permanganate (PP) from a pharmacy. I got mine from Guardian but it was labeled as Wound Disinfectant, but check the bottle's contents beforehand. It's an aqueous solution of the chemical so a few drops of it, just enough to tint a container of water purplish is sufficient. Soak the plant in that tinted water for about 10 minutes or so and it will basically disinfect the plant. After taking it out, rinse it under your tap water to remove any trace of the PP solution. It should be safe for use in the tank by then.

Note, this PP bath method may not kill snail eggs, so manual checking of the leaves might be a necessity.

[Shadow]

Snail will not kill your plant, it is just nuisance. If it is just few plant then you can do PP and manual checking for egg. But if you planting 3ft tank then good luck, imagine how many leaf need to check

I normally don't care about quarantine. I just introduce dwarf puffer fish during snail infestation. Problem is I need to give it to someone else once no more snail in the tank

[Navanod]

Get a bottle of potassium permanganate (PP) from a pharmacy. I got mine from Guardian but it was labeled as Wound Disinfectant, but check the bottle's contents beforehand. It's an aqueous solution of the chemical so a few drops of it, just enough to tint a container of water purplish is sufficient. Soak the plant in that tinted water for about 10 minutes or so and it will basically disinfect the plant. After taking it out, rinse it under your tap water to remove any trace of the PP solution. It should be safe for use in the tank by then.

Note, this PP bath method may not kill snail eggs, so manual checking of the leaves might be a necessity.

Try to buy the dry crystal version of the PP. It'll be much cheaper (although you'll never ever finish it up). You just have to be careful when using crystals as they'll stain your hands and containers very badly.

If you're worried about the PP getting into your fish tank, soak the plants after you've rinsed off the PP and add a generous amount of anti-chlorine. The anti-chlorine will also break down the PP.

Snails are not a major issue since I always keep a colony of security guards (assassin snails) in the tank. I'm more worried bout hydra and planaria

[lizhien]

Will the assassin snails be able to survive in a chiller tank? Never had them in my tank before. Will get some pp crystals later.. I had some dwarf puffers but gave them away when I took over this shrimp tank

[stormhawk]

If I could get the crystal form I'd do it, but it's difficult when my nearest pharmacy is staffed by a lady from China who doesn't understand what potassium permanganate is.

I had to check the contents to find out which bottle contained it.

[lizhien]

Got the PP crystals.. Its a large 100G bottle by ICM pharma.. =)

[stormhawk]

You'll probably only need one teensy weensy crystal for the job.

[lizhien]

Saw worms on the surface of the water after i bombed it with PP. There was some sort of eggs on the plants also.. Transparent slime with eggs? Don't know whose eggs are those..

[stormhawk]

If it looks like blobs of gel-like material with round yellowish eggs inside, then that is a snail egg case. It is likely to be Ramshorn Snail eggs. The other snails lay egg cases too, but they come in different shapes and sizes. Apple Snail egg cases is a large mass of red eggs much like a bunch of grapes.

[lizhien]

ah.. means i might have snails hatching in the tank soon.. din scour the entire plant.. But the shrimps seem to love the new plant.. they are all over it

[xXXXx13]

I used aquarium salt water to soak the new bought plants that I bought...cheap cheap

[Jianyuan]

Did you managed to remove all the eggs?

p.s @cole, cannot pm you. your inbox full.

[sungod666]

i think i should have tried the PP solution. currently i am using the baxter plant quarantine. i open a basin of fresh water, dump the plants in and drop some of the baxter solution in and let it rest for 2 hours than i soak the plants in freshwater again to get rid of the chemicals and put the plants into tank. usually i see a lot dead snails and some debris after the chemical soak. so far no dead plants yet but sometimes it is not thorough enough.

[stormhawk]

If you find a lot of dead snails etc from the plants after a disinfection bath, just give the plant a good shake in the bath water to dislodge all the crap. Spray the plants again with tap water to rinse out any leftover disinfectant residue. If not you might foul your tank with any remaining snail carcasses stuck in the wood or the roots. 2 hours is a long time for disinfection. With PP, the time frame is 10-20 minutes, until the solution changes colour from purple to brown or so.