Plant dip

[mort]

Hi, I'm starting a little shrimp nano and am getting some plants from a friend who I know has planaria but obviously don't want to inherit these. Would an iodine (lugols) dip work? I have it lying around as I use it for my corals but can't see it recommended anywhere.

Thanks

 

[zozo]

Very high dose of Praziquantel definitively kills them, it's a dewormer, the adviced dose for fish wont kill.. But it does if you put a high dose in little water to dip the plants or leave 'm in longer periode without harm to the plant. Don't know if it kills planaria eggs, likely not. Depending on the plant sp. i always spray them with H2O2 and wait a 10 minutes and than wash them throughly, most plants can take it, but not all, usualy the soft tissue and true aquatics plants don't like it.

If H202 kills eggs, i actualy don't realy know, only know it is very agresive desinfectant to organic cells, killing germs and algae.

 

[ian_m]

I dip plants in dilute solution of liquid carbon. Kill snails, snail eggs as well as algae. Be careful,, like all dips too strong will kill the plants.

 

[Guest]

You can also use eSHa Gastropex as well.

 

[mort]

Would full strength seawater do any harm to plants with just a quick dip? I ask as we use freshwater dips to eradicate flatforms in marine tanks and I've often freshwater dipped macro algaes on arrival to get rid of them. It's only a 10 second dip or so but due to osmotic pressure it's plenty to knock them all off.

I've got dewormer already incase I ever got them but would prefer to not use nasty chemicals unless necessary (have liquid carbon as well so could use as suggested above) and it's only planaria I'm worried about.

 

[zozo]

That Biomax No Planaria product works very good, that's a Betel nut powder (Areca catechu nut).. Used it a few times on planaria infested tanks, harmless to plants, fish and shrimps, but it can kill snails. Planaria are real buggers, they seem to be carnivorous and must be canibalistic, i had a tank infested that had no fish in it and so never got any food, but one day full of planaria also introduced with swapping plants.

But again it's likely the eggs that might survive short term dips and i have no idea what the hatch time is.

 

[mort]

I tried lugols as a test, simply because I had it and can say it has absolutely no effect on snails (apart from possibly improving their shell). These were the tadpole snails and to big to have been eggs during the dips.