Dip or Quarantine Plants?

[3meis]

Is there a need to dip/treat plants or quarantine them before adding them to the tank? If yes, what should be used as a dip solution and what's the process?

Thanks everyone, in advance for your guidance.

[dirtyplants]

I dip 1% bleach and the rest water. Kills parasites, QT does not kill parasites.

[Tankster]

I am glad someone asked this question because it has been on my list to ask for some time now.
Coree, can you tell me your process? How long do you dip and after the dip do you rinse. At what point to you putt hem in with the fish?

[dirtyplants]

Greg, when I purchase new plants I pull off the root material it was shipped with, and get a bucket of which I put in about 1% bleach and the rest with tap water. The 1% will vary depending on the size of container. You don't have to be accurate with this. I place the plants in water for about three minutes and then rinse in sink thoroughly but gently. Place on paper towel give a couple of minutes so snails can crawl off or fall off and then plant.

[Tazalanche]

When Merry dips our plants, she does it with two 5 gallon buckets in a bathroom tub.
Bucket 1: A 19:1 ratio of 19 cups of water to 1 cup bleach.
Bucket 2: Fill with at least 4 gallons of tap water mixed with 1/4 teaspoon of Safe (which is enough to treat a 55 gallon tank).

She does the following steps:
Prepare bucket 1.
Prepare bucket 2.
Start water change on tank that will receive plants, cleaning and draining to desired level.
Go to buckets and slowly "swish" the new plant around in the bleach bucket for up to a minute (time depends on hardiness of plant).
Drop the dipped plant into the Safe bucket.
Repeat above for all new plants.
After all plants are dipped & dropped in the Safe bucket, stir them gently and slowly in the Safe bucket for a couple minutes.
Empty & rinse the bleach bucket in tub (up to 5 minutes have passed since the last plant was placed in the Safe bucket).
Take Safe bucket to tank.
Treat tank with normal dosage of Safe.
Place plants in tank.
Refill tank.
Empty & rinse the Safe bucket in tub.


I hope that helps.

[evabug1]

Does it damage the plant when you do this process?

[dirtyplants]

The plants will go into shock, so will take a bit more time to recover in a newly planted environment, but remember plants are some of the most hardy and opportunistic organisms on the planet. There recovery time is a little slower but they recover providing you did not kill them before hand, and if you give them what is needed in nourishment and environment. New plants will be in shock anyways, being removed from its beginning source. It takes plants about two weeks of adjustment after being replanted so you can add a week to this. So I am guessing three weeks of adjustment before the roots system really begins to grow. During this period a plant has limits as to how much nutrients it can be taken in because much of the plants nutrients are pulled in by the root system not necessarily the leaves. This is sometimes referred to as the dormant stage, and is a good time for algae blooms because a new tank setup for plants will have lots of nutrients and new plants will have limited ability to pull in a lot of those nutrients until the root system develops.

[evabug1]

Thanks for answering my question so thoroughly!