Re: plant auction preparation (fwd)

[Kathy Olson <kathy@thekrib.com>]

I asked Karen Randall what she does about plants/plant diseases/fish
diseases and here is her answer.  I told her yes, for the article in a
column!!!

Kathy


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 08:34:04 -0500
From: Karen Randall <krandall@rdrcpa.biz>
To: Kathy Olson <kathy@thekrib.com>
Subject: Re: plant auction preparation (fwd)

My personal opinion is that anything more than rinsing them off under the
tap, and a cursory feel for snail eggs is all that is necessary.

I wouldn't sell plants out of a tank that recently had a disease problem,
just as I wouldn't sell fish out of a tank like that.  That said, I have
NEVER had a fish disease enter my tanks via plants. (I don't think I've ever
had a plant disease that I could recognize, although Claus tells me it
happens)

I don't care much about snails.  I only have one tanks (the 125) without
some sort of snail predator, and even in that tank, snails don't reach
"problem" proportions.  The big snails that are likely to do a lot of plant
damage lay their eggs above the water line, (as we saw in Brazil) not on
plants.  The little guys really don't bother healthy plant material... They
just get a bum rap for eating leaves that are already deteriorating.  If
someone really hates snails, a few Botia striata or a small Synodontis will
keep a tank snail free.  I also strongly suspect Striped Raphael cats eat
them too, though I haven't seen them do it... I've never seen snails in a
tank with one of these fish.

Algae doesn't grow in conditions that are not specific to it's needs.
TRYING to purposely grow a specific type of algae is really very difficult.
If you have the right conditions for a particular type  of algae, you'll
probably get an infestation no matter how careful you are, unless you go to
Paul Kromholz' lengths and maintain a strictly quarantined system.  If you
do that there has to be NO contact with any equipment from other tanks, and
NO additions of either plants or animals that haven't been quarantined
first.  WAY more effort than most people are willing to go to.  And the
minute you slip up ONCE, the spores are in the system.  It's much easier to
learn how to manage algae than to keep it out of a tank.  I have purposely
introduced algae covered materials into well balanced, (visible) algae free
tanks a number of times, and never had it survive.

As a general rule, I don't buy plants that have an obvious coating of algae,
just as I don't knowingly buy plants out of tanks with sick fish.  But if
the plant and the fish look healthy, I don't worry about it.  Anything that
will kill pathogens and algae is likely to damage plants.  Even with wild
collected plants, I rinse them well, remove any large insect larvae
(specifically dragon fly larvae) and remove all mud from the roots.  With
stem plants I remove the roots altogether.  Then I put them in my tanks.  I
have yet to have a problem with it.

So, in short, when preparing plants for auction, don't sell plants covered
with visible algae, or from a tank that you know has disease problems.
Remove snail eggs if you know they are present, at the same time you trim
any older, deteriorating foliage.  Label it accurately, or say you don't
know for sure.  That's really all that's necessary!

Can you ask her if I can use this question in my AFM column?  It's a good
one.

Karen

Karen A. Randall
krandall@rdrcpa.biz