# Is Alum a safe way to disinfect plants meant for an invertebrate tank?



## ravensgate (May 24, 2012)

Yes. I soak plants for 1-3 days in alum. Then soak them in heavily dechlorinated water. Then give them a good rinse and put them in the tank. If I do less than one day I DO wind up with some pests...nematodes and such. Had a few snails make it through both a PP and alum dip but I didn't do the alum long enough. If you want to really get rid of the snails and eggs leave them soaking in an alum dip for 3 days. I've never had any ill effects to my plants from it.


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## Akeath (Dec 28, 2009)

What was the alum to water ratio of the solution you soaked in? Also, what kind of invertebrates did you have in your main tank?


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## ravensgate (May 24, 2012)

If you google 'alum soak for plants' you can find some info on ratio. I just pour alum in water. You can watch pest snails retract into their shells and die pretty dang quickly. I probably use container that contains about a quart of water and put about a couple of teaspoons worth of alum in it if I had to guess at the amount I'm using. I do it for plants going in with me bettas as well as plants that go in with my RCS and PFRs that also houses a nerite snail. I've done it for all the plants that are in my new tank that right now just has ramshorns in it (that I put in there on purpose). I've used it on mosses and floaters as well. My one warning is if you use it for floaters with dense roots you'll need to separate the the roots a bit with your fingers while it's soaking. The snails and other pests can hide deep in those roots and it seems the soak doesn't get to them as well.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

To those of you who soak your plants for 2-3 days, doesn't that cause the plants to start to rot? I know when I leave plants in a bucket of aquarium water for 3 days, some of them are completely rotted while many others are declining. I'd be afraid to soak plants that long for fear it would damage them too much, especially if they are already going through the stress of being shipped for 2-3 days.

Do any of you add filtration to the buckets in which the plants are soaking? Do any of the plants suffer after 3 days of soaking?


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## ravensgate (May 24, 2012)

I leave my plants in quarantine sometimes for a week. The only problems I've had with rotting plants has been ludwigia. Can't get that stuff to live even in my aquarium for some reason. But out of about 10-15 different plants I've had in quarantine in the past few months that's the only one I had issues with. When I quarantine I don't use any airstone or filtration either.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

Jaime, what plants are you soaking? Is it mainly things like java fern, Anubias, Bacopa, Crypts, and things along those lines?

Have you soaked plants like Cabomba, Cuphea, Hygros, Limnos, Myriophyllum, Pogostemon, Polygonum, Rotala or Staurogyne?


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## wkndracer (Mar 14, 2009)

something to keep the water turning will improve the results for those like me that QT everything incoming.

either an air stone or a small power head to create turnover and gas exchange. 

beyond a 3 day soak I add light, a bit of trace and macro or simply use old tank water keeping plants away from my systems up to 2 weeks before adding them.


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## ravensgate (May 24, 2012)

Complexity said:


> Jaime, what plants are you soaking? Is it mainly things like java fern, Anubias, Bacopa, Crypts, and things along those lines?
> 
> Have you soaked plants like Cabomba, Cuphea, Hygros, Limnos, Myriophyllum, Pogostemon, Polygonum, Rotala or Staurogyne?


Java ferns, anubias, crypts and other tough plants get bleach dips. I use alum dips for plants where I am unsure if they can handle bleach. So all mosses, fissidens, DHG, anacharis, subwassertang, cabomba and similar plants get alum. I've done hygrophilia, rotala japan red, and notocyphus lutescens in alum as well. Those are just what off the top of my head that I've gotten in recently.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

ravensgate said:


> Java ferns, anubias, crypts and other tough plants get bleach dips. I use alum dips for plants where I am unsure if they can handle bleach. So all mosses, fissidens, DHG, anacharis, subwassertang, cabomba and similar plants get alum. I've done hygrophilia, rotala japan red, and notocyphus lutescens in alum as well. Those are just what off the top of my head that I've gotten in recently.


Okay, that helps. Thanks for the list. I may give it a try on some of my trimmings that I'm going to discard just to see how they do. Since I've waged full war on MTSnails, I really would like to keep them out of my tanks.

Is the 3 day soak specifically to get snail eggs or is there another reason to soak the plants for so long? (Does it show that soaking the plants for so long makes me nervous? LOL!)


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## ravensgate (May 24, 2012)

3 day soak is for eggs AFAIK. Generally after just 1 day it gets all the snails. At least in my experiences with it. Honestly, when I do it all the snails are dead within about 20 minutes or less. But I leave the plants in there and occasionally stir them around in case there are hiding snails (like in the case of floaters with dense roots, definitely have to do that).


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## Akeath (Dec 28, 2009)

Thanks so much. This is really helpful. Actually, the tanks I'm putting these plants in also contain RCS, Nerites, and Bettas. :icon_lol: I'm going to go ahead and leave the plants in for 3 days to make sure I get everything. And once I get around to getting rid of the pond snails in my Betta tank (that came in when I tried using potassium permanganate to disinfect plants) I might treat the plants in there with Alum to make sure that any remaining eggs from the pond snails are gone. It will be so much simpler to get rid of those snails now that I have a reliable means to keep new eggs from hatching.


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## MarkFleener (Aug 19, 2019)

How are the alum dips working out for you?... 3 tablespoons per gallon for 3 days, making sure that the plants are fully submerged? I could do Red Tiger Lotus and Hornwort like this and be okay? Still though, I'd be so scared that it didn't work (if the plants survive), I'd want to keep the plants quarantined for a couple months, feeding the QT to see if a snail population bloom develops. How long do you think that would take (for the eggs to hatch and snails to mature, if they survived the 3 day dip)? 2 or 3 months?


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

This is a thread from seven years ago.

But based on the number of posts you've made worrying about snails, I highly recommend you do a lot more research. Seems to be a bit of an overreaction.


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

MarkFleener said:


> How are the alum dips working out for you?... 3 tablespoons per gallon for 3 days, making sure that the plants are fully submerged? I could do Red Tiger Lotus and Hornwort like this and be okay? Still though, I'd be so scared that it didn't work (if the plants survive), I'd want to keep the plants quarantined for a couple months, feeding the QT to see if a snail population bloom develops. How long do you think that would take (for the eggs to hatch and snails to mature, if they survived the 3 day dip)? 2 or 3 months?


My personal snail and plant qt method is as follows. Plants (any and all from feathery milfoils, to hearty anubias, to duckweed) get a 2 week quarantine period with lights, and an air stone for circulation. You could add co2 or ferts if that is your ultimate end goal. Then from there they get a 2 day soak with alum and a air stone at 1 TBS per GALLON (usually I use smaller volumes unless I have large plants). Rinse well in running tap water and add to which ever tank they are going into. Works great on the several tanks i have had, and I've added copious quantities of wild collected plants as well as store bought with never a snail or eggs sneaking through. I keep cherry/amano shrimp/otos/tetras in the tanks the treated plants end up in and I've never seen them react to the new plants in any way.


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