Ridding new plants of snails and other unwanted guests

[Jay99]

What process do you follow to rid newly purchased aquarium plants of snails and other unwanted gusts?

[Guppysnail]

Quarantine without fish for 2-3 weeks will eliminate most bacteria/parasites. It will also reveal if you have snails. For snails alum dip works. For hydra hydrogen peroxide look up how long for each plant as h2o2 will harm the plant if left on too long. Elodea and a few others are very sensitive to alum. Copper based fish medications can also work for snails. Me personally I enjoy free pet snails. They are awesome gardeners so I’m not 100% sure on my suggestions for removal of snails I’ve never used them those are just what I have read. 

[Torrey]

On 10/20/2021 at 6:58 PM, Jay99 said:

What process do you follow to rid newly purchased aquarium plants of snails and other unwanted gusts?

Unless a plant is going in a dedicated shrimp tank (which I no longer have 😔) or a fry grow out tank, there's nothing that comes on plants that worry me anymore. 

I used to be quite paranoid (as late in life as last summer) and meticulously put plants in QT, used an alum dip, or rinsed with H2O2.... and I was not having fun.

My plants didn't look their best.

And that's how I found Cory on YouTube. 

This year, I bravely bought some plants (azolla) from a pond supply store. 

They came with daphnia, amphopods, copepods, damselfly larvae, and thousands of little bugs that look like an aquatic version of aphids, and the endlers have a blast hunting them down and eating them. There were probably some mosquito larvae in there, but only saw a couple that survived long enough for fish to eat them. (The spouse was not impressed with this aspect of pond plants, however).

The pond plants helped my Walstad tank take off, I believe, as all the microfauna help the plants grow, provide food for the endlers to hunt, and I didn't put pond plants in my breeding tanks. [I try to be responsible with where I choose to experiment]

If you absolutely don't want microfauna in your tank, or need a sterile plant tank, Irene (GirlTalksFish) has some great videos on how to do an alum dip, and other options for cleaning plants.