View Full Version : Collecting wild plants
So I was just canoeing in a local river and came across this great looking stem plant. I grabbed some handfuls of it and now have it at home for the past week in a bucket of water.
Is there anything special I should do before trying them in my aquarium? A bleach dip perhaps?
What do you guys do with wild plants?
Seaman
07-12-2004, 2:14 PM
Definetely do a bleach dip maybe do a bleach dip...then soak it for a couple days in a bucket then dip it once more....just to make sure you dont bring anything into the tank undesireable, snails, fungus, etc....
plantbrain
07-12-2004, 5:12 PM
I just rinse and trim them good in tap water for as few hours.
Never had issues, snails are not issues either. Buy a zebra loach (Botia striata) if you don't like snails.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Seaman
07-12-2004, 10:46 PM
I dunno i would think most snails you would introduce from the wild are eaisly killed with a bleach dip....in my opinion prevention is better than trying to fix a problem...and i have never really wanted to add fish just to take care of a problem that you can eaisly avoid.
my .02
Well I will probably do the bleach dip to be safe. Adding a zebra loach to a 5 or 10 gallon tank probably isn't the way to go.
plantbrain
07-13-2004, 7:15 PM
Okay this is now a snail issue, not a disease issue.
Why are snails a problem? The small ones that might come in do not eat plants and are never a problem unless you over feed your fish.
So you can add a zebra loach, all 3" of it max size if you must have a tank without snails but they eat algae and cause no harm to the plants(actually help). So why pick on snails?
What they do to you?:-)
They help, not harm,
Regards,
Tom Barr
All of my tanks are full of snails. I love the guys. Rams horns are the best at grazing on algae covered leaves. Pond snails are kind of annoying to look at but don't harm anything. Even a 3 inch fish, though, would be a bit big for a 10 gallon tank in my opinion anyway.