Today I was reminded of why it's even important to quarantine plants.

[Root]

I went to the LFS today to pick up a couple of nerite snails for my mother-in-law and noticed some cryptocorn for $2 in a Cherry Shrimp tank and decided to grab some for me. I swung home on the way to the in-laws to drop the plants off and decided to check out the leaves on the crypts through the bag. That is when I noticed this plant is covered in planaria and it was about to go into my shrimp tank 🤦‍♂️ My heart dropped to my stomach. I am going to treat the plants, but should I treat the nerite snails just in case or just make sure the planaria doesn't get into the in laws tank? 

[Odd Duck]

I don’t know of any planaria treatment that is safe for nerite snails.  Maybe someone else knows of one.  I would quarantine the snails for at least a month and inspect them closely at least weekly.  Remember, nerites are very algae dependent for food.

The good news is, you saw them before they got to the tank.

[Scapexghost]

On 6/28/2022 at 10:49 AM, Odd Duck said:

I don’t know of any planaria treatment that is safe for nerite snails.  Maybe someone else knows of one.  I would quarantine the snails for at least a month and inspect them closely at least weekly.  Remember, nerites are very algae dependent for food.

The good news is, you saw them before they got to the tank.

Would salt work? Nerites can survive in seawater, but would a high enough salt dose kill the planaria?

[Odd Duck]

I don’t know the answer to that.  I believe I’ve read they can tolerate brackish, but I wouldn’t bank on my iffy memory.  And I don’t know if brackish will kill planaria.  I’d have to do some serious reading to be able to answer that and I don’t have any resources that you couldn’t easily access yourself.  If I were you, I would do some serious reading and keep that nerite quarantined until you’ve found at least some answers.

I would certainly treat the plant with seltzer water to kill any planaria as per the Reverse Respiration thread, but you would kill the nerite if you treated it that way.  Quarantine until you can read up on the subject both from the “Will brackish water kill planaria” and from the “Can nerites tolerate a salt dip/brackish water” directions.

[Brandon p]

Why didn’t you take them back and go someplace else. I would be to lazy. I don’t know if a good way to get rid of them that is snail safe Fenbendazole is what use but it’s not snail safe especially nertile. There the old school planaria traps. If you are just want to treat the plants use the chemicals. You cant treat the snails as far is I know. 

Edited June 30, 2022 by Brandon p

[Root]

@brandon p

 

Thanks you guys for the input. Just one of those things of where else can you go in my area. I'm on other side of the lazy coin lol. I spent $8 bucks for some snails, crypts, and a lesson learned with this LFS. Would rather just quarantine and not burn my time and more gas at this point. 

[Guppysnail]

@Paul R here is the thread detailing how to rid the plants of planaria in a very easy safe chemical free manner. It is not safe for the snails though. 

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Mmiller2001]

I would dip the plants in a 10ml per gallon Hydrogen Peroxide dip for 10 minutes and return the snails.

[Odd Duck]

I’ve been doing a bit of reading to see if a salt dip would kill planaria and I got mixed answers.  Some say it will but some say it won’t.  Most say that a salt dip would be fairly safe for nerites and also for ramshorn snails.  I could not find any solid answer for timing on the salt dip or how concentrated the salt could be other than a single anecdotal mention of using 1 tablespoon aquarium per gallon of water for a couple days in a discus tank with a mention that the discus should tolerate that salt level for several days without issues.  Others mentioned a tablespoon per 3 gallons but this may not clear the planaria.

All that said, I would still recommend you do the seltzer water for the plants and if it was my tank, I would risk doing a salt dip on the nerite for at least 5-10 minutes as long as the snail didn’t start showing issues.  It could likely stay in that concentration for days on end with no issues, but it’s hard to confirm with any certainty on any given species of nerite.

[Torrey]

Nerites typically crawl their way into increasing salinity to breed, so a slow gradual increase should theoretically work.

That being said, I would grow some hair algae, and Q/T the nerites in a glass bottom container to make it easy to monitor  for issues. Feed a hair algae chunk the size of a quarter to the nerites, as needed.

Observe for any planaria for at least 30 days.

 

Do the Reverse Respiration for the plants.

 

Don't dump the water from the bag anywhere without treating it first. Options to kill planaria (and not merely get them to cyst up, and invade your water supply via sewage, etc)

1. Add H2O2 until amount of water is doubled, let sit overnight

2. Seltzer water to double the volume, and put in the dark for 24 hours

3. Add alcohol until water volume is doubled

 

I actually keep planaria on purpose, for homeschoolers to use in science. Lots of experiments, lol

[Arcticgypsy]

Had them once.  I did the med trio for new fish, and it got rid of the planaria in a short time.    

general cure, Ich-x, Erythromycin 

not sure whst med did the trick, but that combo did.   Dud deep gravel vacs on my next few water changes.  Never saw the planaria again 

[Guppysnail]

On 7/1/2022 at 2:33 AM, Torrey said:

Seltzer water to double the volume, and put in the dark for 24 hours

I’m not certain if it will work added to water. All the tests we did involved seltzer only. Interesting to see as an experiment though.

I would remove the plants from the water and drop into straight seltzer since you certainly do not want your tanks to be an experiment. Then treat water separate as @Torrey recommended. 
 

If you do try seltzer to treat the water before disposal I would be interested in seeing if it works.