Bleaching my plants.. help

T

Temptress

Total Newbie
Mar 12, 2009
370
0
16
46
Minnesota
Ok.. I bought a new 5gal tank for my lonely (but not for long) Brigg and my 5 cherry shrimp.. I have TONS of live plants in my 10gal that is ALSO infested with pond snails..

I get the don't overfeed thing but I can't help myself.. I feel like there should be food everywhere so that no one goes hungry (and yes I have to do way too many WC's lol)

Anyway, I want to clean up these plants before I add them to this 5gal so can anyone explain the process of using bleach? Not only how strong but how long to leave them in there and what to do before I add them back to my tank.. stuff like that.. also I have a moss wall can that be dipped as well?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated =)
 
I would think it would be better to inspect the plant under a bright light and rinse them off very well with strong water current like a bathtub faucet or something like that, or maybe with a hose with a high pressure mist
 
I tend to agree with Jag. For a 5 gallon amount of plants, just run them under tap water and use your fingers to find and wipe away any slimy clumps there might be from eggs. You're going to go through the plants you're transferring anyway to trim the roots down and remove dying or torn leaves, so you'll go over them all one by one. That's all it takes is close visual inspection and touching all plant parts.

If you miss any snail eggs along the way and do introduce them to the new tank, they're not going to take over unless you allow them to. Reduce your overfeeding habit, keep up with water changes and gravel vaccing, and hand-remove the ones you find - this will control or eliminate them. If on the other hand, you're just going to keep feeding the way you do.. snails are always going to be present, one way or another. A one-time dip now using a weak bleach dilution won't make much difference there.
 
I have seen the bleach dip suggestion many times, and never have I seen some one report back that they tried it with good results. My advice, do not do the bleach dip.

H2O2 dip is an acceptable option, but even better is an excel dip or spray. 3:1 dilution of excel, spray on the affected area, and let it sit for no longer than 5 minutes. Then, you can either rinse it off in the sink, or just put it in the aquarium. I recommend the second option. The algae will all die within a 2-3 days.
 
jm its for snails not algae... a 10% bleach solution for no longer than 5 min will kill any snails and eggs and wont hurt the plants make sure to rinse them really well and dip them is some declored water before you put them in the tank
 
Thanks, I guess I will just try to wash them away.. i just really didn't want ANY of these pond snails in my tank.. I already have ramshorns that I want to keep, briggs, trapdoors, and MTS ALL of which I have to make sure get food, so underfeeding is not an option I don't want to control "a snail population" I want to makes extinct THIS snail population in my tanks =)
 
I was given 19:1 ratio for bleaching plants. 10% seems to be too much bleach. I tried the 19:1 ratio and all I did was dip them in and then rinse. The plants still took a hit and wilted from it but they did recover.
 
I have done 20:1 bleach dip on sturdy plants like java fern & anubias without problems but thin leaved plants took a big hit. Crypts were damaged a bit but not killed.

I haven't tried potassium permanganate, does it kill snails or just algae? Snails aren't an issue to me, loaches love them.
 
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