"Richard Sexton" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Rick wrote:

"Richard Sexton" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Dave S wrote:
How can I sterilise newly purchased plants before adding them to my
aquarium?

Against procaryotic alge: peroxide 1:10 for 15 mins.
Against green algae: bleach 1:20 for 4 minutes
Against everything: copper sulphate. I'm unsure of the dose.

although I have beached many plants in the 1:20 solution I would not
recommend it or at least for that long for many plants including crypts
and
fine leafed plants. You may want to limit that time for no more than 2
minutes and even then expect losses.


Yeah it's nasty stuff. But I've never lost a plant this way. They may
lose some or all of their leaves but crypts frequently do that anyway
when you move them from a store tank to your own.

Paul Krumholz has shown than 2 minutes is sometims not enough. best to
try 2, 3, 4 minutes, which ever you poick, then quarentine them - his
sole concern is killing green thread algae.

It would be helpful to know what needs to be killed on onincoming plants
and pick the right poison for the job.



yes, I have used bleach for 3-4 minutes on anubias type plants with no
problem at all. Interesting about the crypts. I have never lost a cryp due
to transplanting however some months back I changed all my substrate to
flourite and due to some BBA in my tank I decided to bleach all my plants. I
did a 3 minute dip and every crypt melted down and very few came back and
like you mention I was fully expecting them to grow back out, just never
happened.

Rick