disinfecting water plants?

[bobbd]

Has anyone disinfected water plants for possible parasites with bleach ,i read it can be done but do you have to rid all dirt and leaves and at what strength and how long? Thanks

[ndtechie05]

I have heard of PP but not bleach. sorry

[davidjensen]

When I buy some floating plants I will take the 18g of PP that I would put into the pond as a low dose treatment and put about 1/8 or so into a 5 gallon bucket and place the floating plants into it for about 10 minutes and then it and the rest goes into the pond.

[bobbd]

I was wondering about the bleach method because i really dont want to strip the dirt from the root ball

[davidjensen]

Are you putting dirt into the pond? I always used pea gravel and rooted directly into it. Don't forget some large rock on top of the dirt or whatever you use so the fish will not dig into it.

[Joey S]

I would be concerned about using bleach and then putting it into the pond...unless you use a dechlor. I've only used the PP method.

[koiman1950]

I concur. You really don't want to keep the dirt as it isn't necessary. The plants take their nutrition from the water, not the soil. So, as previously stated, plant in pea gravel and cover the top of the planter with 1 1/2"-2" size small cobble to keep the fish from uprooting them. The soil does nothing but break down and rot in the pond causing anaerobic conditions to exist, which is NOT a good thing!

[jimmyjammer]

I read somewhere two that you can use bleach but I'm sorry I can't remember where and what the dose is. If u use the bleach method rinse of your plants very well before putting in pond I also would use pea gravel.

[bobbd]

Thanks for all the good advice. These plants are water lillies ad cattails and are booming so should i just remove dirt from rootballs and then pp them or do i have to remove leaves and blooms too. I will repot them in pea gravel.

[nmtsaki]

a 1:20 bleach solution for a couple of minutes can be done, but it can also kill the plant. Potassium permanganate is a lot safer on the plant. You do not have to remove blooms or leaves. The blooms may die anyway.

I found this in a thread as a protocol:

PP doesn't kill everything. It won't kill leeches. And (maybe my snails are tough!) but, Alum didn't kill my snails. PP kills snails. And bacteria along with other critters. Alum for leeches. Seems the only posts I answer are about snails, leeches and aphids! I'm the Queen of critters! So, for disinfecting plants - I have a bit of experience here, I ship plants every week, and they are inspected by the USDA prior to shipping. So, here goes - Mix 4 oz of PP into 32 oz or water. This becomes your stock solution. Use 1 drop of stock solution in 1 gallon of water to achieve 2ppm. You want 24ppm to disinfect plants. You want to mix the PP stock solution into the container that your plants are going to be in, so I just run the hose until it is all mixed up. CAUTION #1 DO NOT USE THIS STRENGTH OF PP WHEN THERE ARE FISH PRESENT!! You'll kill them for sure! Since PP works on the "organic" material if you leave the dirt on your plants you will use up the PP before it can disinfect anything! You must wash off all of the dirt, and remove any leaves, pads that are history, before you put the plant into the PP. Most plants I leave in over night, but some are more sensitive and I only leave it in a couple of hours. CAUTION #2 - PP WILL STAIN ANYTHING IT TOUCHES! WEAR GLOVES AND OLD CLOTHES! CAUTION #3 - LIKE ALMOST EVERYTHING IN LIFE, PP HAS IT'S DANGERS! WEAR A DUST MASK, AND DON'T WORK WHERE THE WIND CAN BLOW THE PP BACK INTO YOUR FACE! PP should be treated with the same respect you would use while working with any other chemical - read the precautions and don't get cocky.
Alum will kill leeches (Ucky! I don’t like them!) 1 Tablespoon per 100 gallons. Now, look, I’ve been told that Alum will crash your Ph, so don’t use it in your pond! Use it as a pre-treater. I only found leeches in one of my marginal tanks, the only fish in there were guppies. I way overdosed the tank, and didn’t have a single guppy casualty. But I would never try it in the Koi pond! Tammie

[nmtsaki]

Just to stress: Don't do this with fish present! This is an external method for plant disinfection.

[monomer]

You can find the particulars on aquarium websites for disinfection of plants using either chlorine, salt, potassium permanganate, or alum... of the four I chose to use PP as I think its the safest. I've found that plants don't seem to be all that sensitive to even outrageous levels of PP like say 300ppm. I typically will use a teaspoon mixed into 10-15 gallons of water (its in a 20 gallon tub) and submerge the whole plant, basket to top, for up to 20 minutes with no ill effects upon the plant at all and in fact they seem to experience a strong growth spurt from the treatment in the days following the dip. I've been doing it this spring to kill off snail eggs laid on the plant stems and in the rocks topping the baskets... done it this way three times now in the last month. I wouldn't feel comfortable trying this with chlorine but if you're determined that chlorine is the way to go then what seems to be the accepted recommendation is 1 part standard bleach to 19 parts water, dip for 2 minutes and immediately rinse with a de-chlorinator water solution... I'd be careful as not all plants will tolerate any amount of chlorine. Good luck there.

[Victoria]

Thanks for all the good advice. These plants are water lillies ad cattails and are booming so should i just remove dirt from rootballs and then pp them or do i have to remove leaves and blooms too. I will repot them in pea gravel.

I think the cattails will be fine in pea gravel, but I don't think the water lilies would be happy about it. Water lilies do fine in sand though, which reportedly doesn't go anaerobic as quickly as dirt does. Personally, I'd be reluctant to bare root water lilies in the heat we're having, but perhaps someone else will disagree with that. Bonnie's Plants website has lots of information about this including videos of bare-rooting water lilies. If you do bare root them in summer, I would suggest removing some of the leaves and all of the flowers to reduce the stress - whenever roots are damaged it is safer to remove a commensurate amount of leaves. Of course another option is to put the water lilies in their own tub for the summer (as is) and repot them in the fall. Good luck!
-Victoria

[bobbd]

Do u realy have to disinfect plants before they go into a koi pond.

[Spaun]

True koi ponds dont really have plants,but ya you should.Ive had baby fish leeches and who knows what, come in on plants in the past.

[koiman1950]

Do u realy have to disinfect plants before they go into a koi pond.

Yes! Unless you don't mind adding parasites, and other unwanted critters to your water.

[nmtsaki]

I prefer not to add plants and have them in an external garden, because of the chance of parasites, viruses and bacteria. Anything that has the potential of having touched another fish (goldfish or koi) has the opportunity of bringing in a pathogen to your pond. Hence, disinfection is important. Plus, some have reported having goldfish eggs or other eggs on them also.

[bobbd]

Does anyone know if u soak bare roots and leaves in the pp solution and for how long?

[icu2]

Right or wrong, I don't know... but that's what I did. The one year I added some WH in the pond I put 1/8 teaspoon of PP in a 5 gallon bucket
and left them overnight in the solution. I rinsed them in clean water and added them to the pond, but never had an issue (accept the fish eating
them all. ). The plants didn't ever seem to even notice the PP and I dumped the solution in the garden after used, and those plants never were
effected either. 1/8 teaspoon in the bucket is a deadly amount for fish... but I never saw any plants harmed by it.

[Victoria]

Right or wrong, I don't know... but that's what I did. The one year I added some WH in the pond I put 1/8 teaspoon of PP in a 5 gallon bucket
and left them overnight in the solution. . . . :

Did you weight them down somehow so that the tops and not just the roots were treated?