Caring for newly acquired houseplants
Caring for newly acquired houseplants
I recently got seven flame water sprite plants off ebay and I'm not sure about the best way to prep them before adding to my tank. I'm thinking maybe a presoak in diluted chlorinated water or some other pretreatment to be safe. I know I'll need to soak them in a dechlorinator afterwards. For now, they're just sitting in plain tap water. Planning to plant some in the substrate and the rest will be floating on the surface. Mainly just want to make sure there aren't any snails hiding on them and no diseases came with the plants.
Re: Caring for newly acquired houseplants
A botanist's warning that any treatment strong enough to kill algae or snails will likely harm the plants themselves is worth heeding. I wouldn't recommend any pretreatment, especially considering the potential risks.
If disease is a concern, it's primarily related to the plants having been in contact with fish. In such cases, a quarantine tank for a few weeks might help, though it's no guarantee of eradicating disease pathogens entirely. However, it could help deal with issues like ich or velvet, assuming no fish are present.
Your current approach of soaking the plants in tap water seems fine, and you can skip the step of soaking them in dechlorinated water afterwards.
If disease is a concern, it's primarily related to the plants having been in contact with fish. In such cases, a quarantine tank for a few weeks might help, though it's no guarantee of eradicating disease pathogens entirely. However, it could help deal with issues like ich or velvet, assuming no fish are present.
Your current approach of soaking the plants in tap water seems fine, and you can skip the step of soaking them in dechlorinated water afterwards.
Re: Caring for newly acquired houseplants
I've had some success in the past with treating black beard algae on anubias plants using a diluted chlorox solution - 19 parts water to 1 part chlorox for 90 seconds. I then followed up with a soak in plain tap water with a double dose of dechlorinator for a few minutes before returning the plants to the tank. This method didn't cause any issues with my anubias, but I'm not sure if water sprite would be as resilient. I'm planning to reach out to the seller to see if the plants were grown in a tank with fish, just to be on the safe side.