# How to clean live plants?



## hgual22 (Jul 18, 2014)

Is there any way to clean live plants? I had tons of live plants in my 10gallon, and the betta recently got sick an died. I treated him with kanaplex, but It was too late. I took the plants and snails out before dosing the meds, they are in a bucket of water. How can I clean the plants to use them again, without harming fish? Thanks 

Also, do I have to clean the snails? One nerite and one mystery.


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## Aqua Aurora (Oct 4, 2013)

What plants do you have (some are more tolerant than others to certain cleaning methods/strengths of doses)? I know anacharis and val species do not do well with dips (tendency to melt) however anubias is very durable to long strong dips.
Do they have algae or are you just concerned about lingering disease on them? 
Be mindful of the snails, some medications/cleaning methods can hurt/kill them. 

If you are concerned that the fish had a communicable disease keep an eye on the snails and don't add any new live animals for 4 weeks, if the snails pass, wait 4 weeks after they die (columnaris is deadly disease that can live on in a tank with no host but will starve itself out/die after about a month). I had a columnaris scare when I lost on of my bettas and all his otos (new ones i stupidly did not quarantine first) and did not add fish for over a month (never dosed meds in tank or cleaned plants, just kept up on water changes and dosed ammonia to keep filter cycled), but tank is fully stocked community now, and everyone is alive and healthy.
That said for cleaning plants, people most often use a diluted solution of water and either bleach or hydrogen peroxide (easily gotten at a drug store or medical isle of a grocery store). The detaisl of what ratio and how long to dip vary between a lot of users though, so there's no single 'correct' answer.
quoted from a noted member of another forum (plantedtanks.net/forum)
" If I dip the plants in a 1-20 bleach/water mix for longer than a few seconds it tends to fatally damage most plants. Perhaps 10-20 seconds is the longest that most plants will tolerate. Anubias are one of the few plants that seem able to tolerate a longer dip."
I've dipped anubias for nearly 30 minutes before and it survived (do not ever try that long of a dip on other plants, they will die). 

For peroxide dips, anotehr quote from same forum, different user:
"Yes, we use H2O2 often. I use straight 3% H2O2 dip for 5 minutes or a <1.5% mixture for 15-30 minutes. It does a good job with algae and parasites.

Like any oxidizers, it will harm the plants too if exposed for too long/too much. I turned my plant trimmings to mush with H2O2 after soaking it for a few hours. I was experimenting."


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## hgual22 (Jul 18, 2014)

So I could try hydrogen peroxide? I have lots of plants, I'll list them wen I get home, I'm at work.


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## Aqua Aurora (Oct 4, 2013)

I believe I'd read that oxidizers like hydrogen peroxide or potassium permanganate can be used to kill off columnaris. I know from doing it this weekend that vals (jungle, corkscrew, italian, etc) do *not *tolerate peroxcide, melted within 3 days x.x
However dwarf hair grass, dwarf baby tears, blyxa (sorta.. its a little melty but not full meltdown) and pygmy chain sword survived the treatment.


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## hgual22 (Jul 18, 2014)

Still havent touched the plants, But I am soaking the tank and gravel in warm salty water (Aquarium salt). Then I am going to let everything dry out completely. Hopefully that kills anything harmful. 

For the live plants, I have dwarf baby tears, melon sword, dwarf hairgrass, Java moss, Water Sprite, Anubis, Myriophyllum Mattengrosense and Rotala Indica.

So in a few days, I think what I will do is clean out this salt water, rinse everything really well, set the tank up, run the new filter, and put the plants and snails back in. Then cycle the tank and put in some guppies? 

Should I run the filter at first? What if the plants and or snails are contaminated and I now just ruined by new filter? Or will this be okay with water changes?

Hopefully everything goes smoothly.


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## Lettuce (Jul 12, 2014)

I thought I read somewhere that just running the tank with the plants in it for a while will naturally get rid of whatever the fish died of, since it doesn't have an animal host to live in, but I suppose that depends on what your fish died of in particular, and idk how snails fit into that theory.


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## Aqua Aurora (Oct 4, 2013)

hgual22 said:


> Still havent touched the plants, But I am soaking the tank and gravel in warm salty water (Aquarium salt). Then I am going to let everything dry out completely. Hopefully that kills anything harmful.
> 
> For the live plants, I have dwarf baby tears, melon sword, dwarf hairgrass, Java moss, Water Sprite, Anubis, Myriophyllum Mattengrosense and Rotala Indica.
> 
> ...


My concern (plant wise)would be the water sprite, myriophyllum, and rotala, they may be a bit more sensitive to peroxide of bleach cleaning than the others. unfortunately I cannot say for sure if columnaris can infect or transmitted to new fish through invertebrates like snails. However we're not sure your fish died of columnaris so it may be no problem at all.. if you have a moment take a look at "columnaris betta" on google or other image search egines and see if yours looks simular to the photographs, if not, you should be safe.. if it does.. I'd set up the tank and wait a month before adding fish. If its a comunicaple disease that the snails can get/transfer then putting them into a tank with cleaned everything else will allow it to re-infect and it just means waiting it out.


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## hgual22 (Jul 18, 2014)

I don't know what it was but there wasn't any growths or anything on him. He turned pale and his scales pine coned but he didn't actually have any white stuff on him. I think it was dropsy but idk. 

I'll run the tank for a few weeks and see what happens to the snails and plants. Thanks you.


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## Pandanke (Jun 16, 2014)

Whenever I have issues and need to wash my plants, I just do it in cold tap water. There is chlorine in our tap water which is meant to kill off these things.

When you're done soaking, maybe over night in a windowsill, go ahead and rinse them thoroughly and they should be fine.

A lot of the plants mentioned will definitely melt and not do well with any type of dip.


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