Plant decontamination?

[JenNewbie]

This weekend I bought several plants to replace the ones that slowly wilted over my heat/salt ich treatment period. Of course, I realize I should have asked this question before I ever bought the plants, but here goes: is it a good idea/necessary to decontaminate plants that are from foreign sources? One plant was a java lace fern donated by a friend that I'm not too worried about. However, I bought a banana plant and another amazon swordleaf from Petco and since I'd already gone through ich w/ fish from them, I was worried that I might be bringing home ich (or snails or some other parasite). I filled a bucket with about 1 gal water as hot as it would come from the tap and I added about 2tbsp of sea salt. I soaked all the plants for about 2-3min and then hand scrubbed them (ran my fingers over leaves/roots) before I added them to the tank. Did that actually do any good, or what is the proper procedure for adding new plants to a tank? Thanks, all!

 

[Guest]

I believe most people who do this, do a 20:1 water/bleach solution. (I never bother, I invite disasters!) I think the hot water was a bad idea, I wouldn't be surprised if all of the plants lose at least some leaves, and some may croak entirely. Hot tap water would probably give the plants one hell of a shock. However, let us know what happens, since it was only a few minutes, it may not have done as much harm as I'm imagining. I doubt the salt would have hurt much, since it was a short duration.

 

[Madame_X]

Jen, I learned my lesson in not disinfecting my plants. I fought cyanobacteria from an infected batch of cabomba. Also, my Bolivian Rams ended up with camallanus (intestinal worms!), and while I'm not certain it came from a plant, I don't know where else it could have come from unless they had them when I got them.

I've used Lime It (too expensive) and potassium permanganate to disinfect any plants I've gotten since. Both do a good job.