# Kills everything but plants



## dr.tran (Oct 8, 2007)

I found out that and old pest reapeared in one of my tanks. Lucky its not one of my main tanks but one of my experiemental low tech tanks. Its the return of the leech. I think it was because last time I didn't clean the filter.

Last time I bleach the substrate and salt dipped my plants. It worked for the most part. None of my other tanks show leeches at all. Luckly its the type that doesn't kill but eats left over stuff. 

I'm getting extremely tired of them and I want to tear down this tank and I need something that will kill everything except the plants. They are senstive so I don't want to do a bleach dip. But I need something that will kill all leeches and its eggs. 

I was thinking about Potassium Permanganate. What are your thoughts about this?

I might boil the substate to get rid of any trace possible for leeches.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Tear it all down, H2O2 the tank.

Do a H2O2 dip on the plants, stick them in a bucket, and then do a KMnO4 dip like you said. Keep them in a bucket for a while. I don't know the life cycle of a leech, but I had one once and I actually threw away all my plants and H2O2 nuked the tank.

Cover the tank up when you do the H2O2. Use an entire bottle...or two. Boiling would work too, but I'm scared of having a leech in a pot that I'd use for food. Pouring boiling water into the tank might work, but I'm not sure if that'll crack the glass?

H2O2 will break down over time to harmless water and O2, so that's why I used it.


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## dr.tran (Oct 8, 2007)

I tried that once before on an older infestation. The H202 worked but I needed something stronger sadly. They were still alive after an hour. But most of the plants didn't make it. 

And yeah it will crack the glass. But I plan to cool it down before adding it back. I hate to have it in my pot too. I'm trying to think of something I can use to boil it in. I may bleach my substrate once more. But I do need something that won't kill my plants, I want to keep these and I'm not sure what I should do about my filter.

I think I'm gonna throw out the media and run bleach water through it for a while too.


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## Preeths (Jan 29, 2008)

At 100 ppm Potassium Permanganate bath will kill any thing but plants (no more than 15 minutes). You can dose the tank at concentration of 2ppm if you do not want to tear it down. at this concentration it is safe for hardy fish. All plants i get are given a PP bath before they go to any of the tanks. you can also use this to sterilise stuff like nets that you may use with more than one tank. Rinse the plants well before you put them in with fish.


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## Tex Gal (Mar 28, 2008)

Preeths said:


> At 100 ppm Potassium Permanganate bath will kill any thing but plants (no more than 15 minutes). You can dose the tank at concentration of 2ppm if you do not want to tear it down. at this concentration it is safe for hardy fish. All plants i get are given a PP bath before they go to any of the tanks. you can also use this to sterilise stuff like nets that you may use with more than one tank. Rinse the plants well before you put them in with fish.


Can you break this dosage down to ___ tsp in _____ amount of water? I was also wondering about using Potassium Permanganate in the tank as a algicide. That's what they use in ponds. At your 2ppm does it kill algae but not the plants? I wonder what dosage it is to kill algae but not plants and fish?


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## Preeths (Jan 29, 2008)

Fish cant tolerate more than 2ppm, for a long time. It is better to measure it by weight and prepare the solution. For a 100 PPM solution you will need to dissolve about 1 gram in 10 liters of water. This treatment is only for drastic measures, mainly used to kill parasites and inverts in fish tanks. Or to sterilize stuff going into a tank. I would not recomend it as an algicide. A few major WC followed by adding few algae eaters to the tank generally is enough to do away with algae.


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## dr.tran (Oct 8, 2007)

Are you sure it will kill all kinds of eggs? I want to be more than 100% sure that this will work. So frustrating.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

I'd use leech specific medication treatment.
It's a lot of labor to redo a tank and run everything through a dip.

Fine if you needed a reason to do it anyway and want to rescape.

Recall how to get leeches off your leg?
Salt. Salt dips work too.

Decent simple run down here:
http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/disease/leeches.php
As with any of these treatments, remove shrimp, they will take a beating.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## t0p_sh0tta (Jan 24, 2008)

On a side note, where does one find potassium permanganate?

Edit: I've found that Kent Marine carries a product called Poly-Ox which has similar uses, but it's a bit different from KMnO4.


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## dr.tran (Oct 8, 2007)

i was told that I could find it in home depot. So I'm gonna go to a hardware store and try and find some.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

try a roundworm dewormer like levamisole or Ivomectin. They're safe enough for snails.


and target dosage is 5-10ppm.


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## Tex Gal (Mar 28, 2008)

I ended up ordering it from ebay. I went all over the place locally and was unable to find it. I tried, Lowes, Home Depot, Pond stores, pool stores, garden centers, compound pharmacies... I finally called some local chemical companies and they said you had to fill out gov. forms and it would take a week or so. That's when I went to ebay. I got a small amount - filled the form out via the net and got the stuff. Much easier.

I have yet to use it. I'll probably only use it for wild plants. A bleach dip is so much easier. The purple will stain.


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## dr.tran (Oct 8, 2007)

mistergreen said:


> try a roundworm dewormer like levamisole or Ivomectin. They're safe enough for snails.
> 
> 
> and target dosage is 5-10ppm.


Thanks. Where do I find some of that? I didn't want to use it first because I'm not 100% sure it will work. Also I don't care about snails. I have only plants in that tank. No snails or shrimp. Just a experimental tank for rare plants in low lights.



Tex Gal said:


> I ended up ordering it from ebay. I went all over the place locally and was unable to find it. I tried, Lowes, Home Depot, Pond stores, pool stores, garden centers, compound pharmacies... I finally called some local chemical companies and they said you had to fill out gov. forms and it would take a week or so. That's when I went to ebay. I got a small amount - filled the form out via the net and got the stuff. Much easier.
> 
> I have yet to use it. I'll probably only use it for wild plants. A bleach dip is so much easier. The purple will stain.


I'm just about to do the same thing. I went to a home deopot today and it feels like idoits work there. No help at all. I just didn't want from ebay because I think it might be way too much of the stuff. I only need a few onces.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

vet store
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30e0794a-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5

the dewormer might work. Its target is nematodes really. Leeches are annelids. You can try to catch a leech and test this out before doing it to your whole tank.

The dewormer will paralyze worms and is plant safe.. More effective than anything else that I can think of besides bleaching everything in your tank.

it's recommended to dose 5-10ppm. Wait a day. do a massive water change. wait 1-2 weeks and repeat for internal parasites.

The second is to catch any stragglers in the life cycle.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

dr.tran said:


> I have only plants in that tank. No snails or shrimp. Just a experimental tank for rare plants in low lights.


oh wait!.. Shouldn't the leeches just die off since there are no animals in this tank? No food, no leeches.


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## god91234 (Feb 11, 2008)

uv, thats my answer for every thing.


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## dr.tran (Oct 8, 2007)

mistergreen said:


> oh wait!.. Shouldn't the leeches just die off since there are no animals in this tank? No food, no leeches.


No because there are certian free living leeches. Meaning they are like worms and eat crap. But they will attack if given the chance. Also I kept leeches once before just to see how long they can live with out food. It was about 5 months without even changing the water and I just gave up and killed them. So they can live for a long long while.



god91234 said:


> uv, thats my answer for every thing.


Can't UV. They can't be sucked into the UV because the don't normally swim. More like suction and crawl.


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## Preeths (Jan 29, 2008)

Once leeches suck blood from a vicim they gan go with out food for upto 6 months.


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## Crystalview (Aug 10, 2007)

I had black leeches. For the most part they stayed in the gravel. They never were on the fish. I had pond snail and leech explosion from my husband over feeding. I emailed "had a snail" since their label instructions were minimal, they told me to treat one drop per gallon for 3 days. Wait 3 to 5 days and repeat. of course change water 50% after each 3 day treatment. See my sig to see what fish survived this treatment. All my moss and other plants did fine also. After each treatment I used copper remover as was also suggested. Watch for stress. Mine showed some but made it through.
You should have seen the leeches after the 2nd treatment. They could not get out of the water fast enough. Of course they can't live out of the water.

The other drug to use is Trichlorofon (Fluke tabs). I did not try these because the "had a snail did fine". Now 3 months, snail and leech free

PP can be bought at pond stores or "water clear" in FS is a weaker version.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

oh, that's a good idea... The comprehensive critter killer, copper!


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Crystalview said:


> I had black leeches. For the most part they stayed in the gravel. They never were on the fish. I had pond snail and leech explosion from my husband over feeding. I emailed "had a snail" since their label instructions were minimal, they told me to treat one drop per gallon for 3 days. Wait 3 to 5 days and repeat. of course change water 50% after each 3 day treatment. See my sig to see what fish survived this treatment. All my moss and other plants did fine also. After each treatment I used copper remover as was also suggested.
> You should have seen the leeches after the 2nd treatment. They could not get out of the water fast enough. Of course they can't live out of the water.
> 
> The other drug to use is Trichlorofon (Fluke tabs). I did not try these because the "had a snail did fine". Now 3 months, snail and leech free
> ...





mistergreen said:


> oh, that's a good idea... The comprehensive critter killer, copper!


Crystalview...having problems keeping any inverts (ie: shrimp) in that tank that used to have leeches? 

This is not a great idea. Copper worked well because it pretty much just nukes all the inverts in your tank...BUT it will "seep" into your equipment, the silicone holding your glass tanks together, etc, etc. Once copper has touched a tank, I don't use it for anything else except as a fish QT.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

dr. tran said he just keep plants in that tank though.


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## Crystalview (Aug 10, 2007)

I used cupprasol. It say's it removes copper. Hope that is true to some point. What will copper do in the long run.
I don't have any inverts and I removed scaleless fish also.


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## dr.tran (Oct 8, 2007)

Well I do plan to keep shrimps and special snails in that tank. So no copper bombing yet. 

I wounder if I could test if theres copper in my tanks? Does anyone know of some kind of swab to wipe down the seams to test for copper?


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

dr.tran said:


> Well I do plan to keep shrimps and special snails in that tank. So no copper bombing yet.
> 
> I wounder if I could test if theres copper in my tanks? Does anyone know of some kind of swab to wipe down the seams to test for copper?


Not efficiently or accurately without spending some serious cash. I've looked to no avail.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

not sure how accurate this is
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100176532

this look pretty good & cheap
http://www.heavymetalstest.com/coppertest.php


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## Crystalview (Aug 10, 2007)

Second one sounds interesting. I will look for it. A fish can cost more then $11



mistergreen said:


> not sure how accurate this is
> http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100176532
> 
> this look pretty good & cheap
> http://www.heavymetalstest.com/coppertest.php


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## customdrumfinishes (Apr 4, 2008)

plantbrain said:


> I'd use leech specific medication treatment.
> It's a lot of labor to redo a tank and run everything through a dip.
> 
> Fine if you needed a reason to do it anyway and want to rescape.
> ...


 A leech specific medication would be what medication? and would it kill snails? i want to kill snails and not plants.

wouldnt clout treatment kill the worms? or would it damage plants to?


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Like Crystalview -- and the article mentioned, Trichlorofon is the drug of choice.

http://koishack.com/forums/index.php?act=Print&client=printer&f=20&t=7246

Seems like it kills snails...and the article that Barr linked us to implies that it won't kill plants.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

just for giggles, I tried Levamisole hydrochloride on a few planarians.. Killed them.
I overdosed the specimen but the first drop paralyzed them within 10 seconds.


I think trichlorofon is an insecticide.. Say good bye to shrimps too.


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## Round Head (May 23, 2008)

Just get a few small loaches and the leeches be gone in a week.


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