Quarantine Plants?

[TMaier]

I have read about plants bringing hitching snails into tanks. But what else can they carry and how can you make them safe before adding to your tank.

A friend gave me frogbit and salvina about 3 weeks ago and I'm seeing stuff pop up I have never seen before.

 

[bullyboy]

I usually do a bleach bath and rinse.
About 2.5ml in a gallon of water and let sit for about an hour.
This works well for hardy plant types (like Anubias) and takes care of mostly the microbiotic, fungus, algae issues however.

Snails are another story.
While i rinse them under running water ill go through them and get the egg sacks off and place the plant on a plate, as it sits the snails will usually crawl off the plants onto the plate.

....i guess ive done this for mosses and more delicate plants too come to think of it, just dont leave them in as long.

 

[skrapeNKA]

I've found that mileage might vary with bleach or peroxide dips; nothing has straight out died on me but a few plants just continually kept going through a cycle of partial melt and new growth. Replacements were picked up from the same LFS and never experienced the same issue. Granted, I did end up with a bit of hair algae I never had before, but the tank denizens and a week of reduced light fixed that