Quarantining Plants

Given that I don't know much about plants:

If there are inverts in the tank (snails, shrimps) you need to be sure there is no snail killer on the plants. If the supplier can't guarantee this, you need to put them in a container with a small carbon filled filter for a few days. This is not necessary if there are no snails/shrimps in the tank.

If you don't have inverts and don't want pest snails, you can soak the plants in a container with snail killer, but this is not guaranteed to work (it doesn't kill eggs!)

If the plants came from a tank that also had fish in, there is a slim chance of transmitting any disease the fish had. Whitespot springs to mind (but then I'm very wary of anything that can transmit whitespot at the moment, you might even say paranoid about it). In theory, leaving them in quarantine for a couple of weeks should eliminate any whitespot problem.

I have left plants in clear glass vases successfully when I didn't want to put them in the tank straight away, and used a bucket to run a carbon filter to remove potential snail killer.


But I don't have many plants and those I do are all slow growing plants that are attached to decor. They all survive the above quite easily.

Dechlorinator is found in water conditioner.

I generally add plants to my quarantine tank if I'm unsure of the source, also by the time I get back from Crews Hill because I get there by public transport which involves 2 buses and a train, or one bus and 2 trains, I'm generally knackered and not in the mood to faff around with plants.

My feeble advice would be not to get plants from ebay - get them from a respectable sourse. I've always used AquaEssentials and bunged them straight in to the tank from the box with no problems. They state 'shrimp safe' on their site.

Thanks, both. I was planning to wait to see when my LFS got more plants in by keeping an eye on their webpage but then, last night, in a rare moment of impulse, bought some java fern and java moss via www.aquariumgardens.co.uk - hope they're considered a reputable source too.

Thanks, LF, for your encouragement. What you've described sounds reassuring that I'm doing the right thing - just hope they survive!  I'm semi-excited, semi-nervous - I keep checking on the anubias, to make sure it hasn't died, seeming quite surprised that its leaves are still green after a whole 24 hours in my care.

The other plants have now arrived.

Now that they're washed thoroughly and had their "salt immersion dips", I'm desperate to put them all straight into the tank but will try to be patient for the next few weeks. If, and only if, I were to get a guarantee that the plants have been in a fish-free environment, can I just check if there is actually any merit in this quarantining process eg will it reduce the likelihood of snails, parasites, or anything else?

I have never quarantined plants for fish disease, it's just that I'm getting paranoid about whitespot at the moment. But I have nerite snails in all my tanks, and cherry shrimps in one, so unless the seller can guarantee plants to be snail killer free, I do keep them in a bucket with a carbon filter for a few days. I would rather put up with pest snails than kill my nerites!

I have bought plants from Ebay, particularly the sellers who also sell shrimps as they do guarantee their plants to be free of anything that harms shrimps. However, these sellers tend to have a limited choice of plants as they are selling plants for shrimp tanks not general community tanks.