If I nuke my tank, can I save my plants?

[Chad]

I'm not saying for sure, but I may be dealing with columnaris in my 20 gallon long. If this does become the case and I need to sterilize (or medicate) it fully, is there a way to do this and save the plants?

I have:
java moss
java fern windelov
anubis, nana and something else
a crypt
water sprite
water wisteria
amazon frogbit
hornwort
tiger lilly

Thing is, I really like my plants and they were a huge pain to get stabilized and growing. Thoughts?
 

[Ken]

There is hope.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/fish-medicine/products/fritz-expel-p

 

[Tihshho]

If you do in fact have columnaris, I'm sorry to hear it. It's a pain to deal with. If you end up having to take drastic measures you might want to look into plant dips to 'sterilize' the plants. I don't have much experience with it, all I know is some people swear by it and some plants are ok with it when others are not. 

The other thing to do as well is to look into the lifecycle of columnaris. If I remember correctly it cannot survive without a host, so if the tank sits empty without anything but plants, given time the tank could be safe to try again with stocking. The one time I had to deal with it, I completely steralized everything, there was too much to risk with cross contamination that getting rid of everything in the tank and starting over was a safer call for me. 

[Chad]

I’ve been having a hard time tracking down columnaris’ life cycle. I think I read today 8 weeks but I also think that online conversation devolved from there with many claiming otherwise. Nothing worth trusting anyway. 

[Chad]

I haven’t had the best luck with sterilization dips in the past. I’ve tried both alum and bleach dips, both killed my plants when I tried to desnail them.

[Guppysnail]

On 9/14/2021 at 9:30 PM, Tihshho said:

If you do in fact have columnaris, I'm sorry to hear it. It's a pain to deal with. If you end up having to take drastic measures you might want to look into plant dips to 'sterilize' the plants. I don't have much experience with it, all I know is some people swear by it and some plants are ok with it when others are not. 

The other thing to do as well is to look into the lifecycle of columnaris. If I remember correctly it cannot survive without a host, so if the tank sits empty without anything but plants, given time the tank could be safe to try again with stocking. The one time I had to deal with it, I completely steralized everything, there was too much to risk with cross contamination that getting rid of everything in the tank and starting over was a safer call for me. 

I agree here. Peace of mind has no price tag for me I would not take the risk for a plant. 

[Mmiller2001]

Medicate the fish food to target only them. Otherwise, just run the tank fishless for a while.