parasites on new plants?

dough041

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Sep 11, 2006
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I recently ( 2 weeks ago) got my 55 gal set up. I got an order of 24 plant assortment from aquariumplants.com. and put them in 1 week ago. (fishless)Today, as I was using my diatom filter I noticed what appeared to be parasites on several of the broad leafed plants. All the plants haved a nice green color, but having this as my first planted tank, I am very concerned??? Any help or suggestions? Also I see two small "globs" of white dots in a clear clump on two othe plants? Have I gotten something from my plant shipment and how can I clear this up? I put in 6 bags of eco complete from them also... Sorry for so many questions, but am very upset with this as I thought all was going great... My tank has a eheim 2026/ hydor inline heater and coralife 2x65 lites.
Joe
 
small "globs" of white dots in a clear clump are snail eggs

What does the other stuff look like that makes you believe it is a parasite?
Crawling little white things? Planaria or something else, maybe but not parasites. Can you give a better description on size, colour, movement, etc.
 
Thanks for the reply. I guess the snail eggs can just be scooped out? The "parasite" type things look like smallish little beetles about 1/16th of an inch- brown? Numerous on two broad leaf plants. Thank you very much again and hoepfully you can give me some advice. Maybe in the am I can get a picture posted ( if I can sleep).
 
for snail eggs soak the plants in Alum (available from grocery store) overnight before putting them into your tank it will kill them.

Pic would help of the parasite things..
 
I checked this morning and found about 5-6 ( eyes aren't the best) very small snails. I got them out before I did a partial water change. Any suggestions as I only have the plants in the tank now.
 
I think you're now going to have a hard time totally eradicating the snails. You can keep picking them out and/or try putting in lettuce leaves at night – in the morning, supposedly, they’ll be covered with snails and you can pull that whole thing out. Some people don’t mind snails. But I always quarantine new plants for that and other reasons. Then if I see snails, I can treat with alum. You can’t really treat a 55 with alum – well, you could except it would take an awfully lot and then you’d have to basically tear it down rinsing the stuff out. Perhaps (just speculating) if you took the plants out and treated them and gravel vacuumed well, since there wouldn't be plants around for them to hang out on, you could see them better to pick out and eliminate.

As for your other little bugs, I don’t know what they are, but they’re not parasites, just nuisances. As with most such things (nematodes, planaria, etc.) they are usually seen in abundance only if you overfeed and underclean... however yours is a new set up, I don't know why'd they'd be covering the leaves except they just hatched... when their food source dries up, so to speak, I think they will be unnoticeable. Not gone, just unnoticeable. Do they gravel vacuum up?

For future reference, as justintoxicated indicated, plants can be treated for alum (aluminum sulfate) to get rid of snails and eggs. You can buy it at a grocery store (spice section, most commonly used for pickling), it's a white powder. These are the instructions I have copied down from somewhere a long time ago: Use 1 tablespoon of alum per gallon of water. Soak the plants a minimum of 20 minutes, up to a maximum of 2 hours. A two-day soak will kill snails and their eggs. Avoid using this method on extremely fragile plants. Note, after I rinse really really really well in multitude water changes.
 
Thanks to everyone for the replies. Being new to planted tanks ( in fact any tank for about 20 years...)I appreciate any suggestions from people who know what they're talking about. I should have cleaned and soaked the plants before I put them in my tank! Hopefully the snails will dissipate since I have no fish in? Cross my fingers.
 
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