Are my live plants potentially carrying illnesses?

[JKfish]

The live plants in the tank waiting for my aquabid fish are the same that were in the sorority before and after it crashed due to some crazy illness that took forever to cure. I sterlized the tank, filter, and decor, and the fluorite gravel I rinsed really well in super hot water... but I didn't do anything to the plants apart from remove them from the tank, accidently let them dry out and almost die for an hour, soak them in warm water for another hour, and stick back in the tank. Is it possible the plants and or fluorite gravel could still be carrying whatever illness was possibly left in the tank before sterilization?

[JKfish]

bump... I'd really like to make sure my plants or gravel aren't possibly holding something that will slowly and painfully kill my little guy once he gets here... any thoughts?

[Oldfishlady]

Although plants can have pathogen/parasite they usually are not problematic with an already healthy fish......maintain good water quality, proper nutrition, low stress and the fish immune response will take care of the rest....

You have lots of both good and bad pathogens in the tank all the time and they need to balance-so the good will help control the bad...since this is a closed system it still needs our help-regular water changes is usually all that is needed-careful not to over clean and remove too many of the good pathogens...the fish immune response also has a role......

Watch your plants and if they start to die-remove them-the decay/rot of the plants can compromise water quality and in turn stresses the fish and this is when you see problems in the fish health....not from the plants per se but from what the plants caused with normal decomp and in closed systems we have to intervene.....

[JKfish]

okay, thank you OFL :) He's my first aquabid buy from thailand, so i really want to make sure he'll be alright, especially since he'll probably be pretty stressed and since the tank is uncycled... I was originally planning on doing a 25% w/c daily until its cycled with him in, but it sounds like I might just want to cut it back to something like 25% 3 times a week or so until its cycled so I don't remove too many good pathogens.

[Oldfishlady]

Make sure you do a really slow acclimation with the fish coming from overseas...place him in a container with the water he came in and add small amount of your conditioned tank water over at least an hour...dump the water as needed and toss until he is in 100% of your tank water...try to do this in a dim lit quiet place too and once you have him acclimated-net and place in the tank with the lights out...hold off on food until the next day with light on...give him 20 min or so to adjust to the lights and then offer small amount of food....good luck...look forward to seeing your import....

[JKfish]

Thank you for the tips OLF, they'll definately be helpful.

[Lion Mom]

What I do when I get new plants is I put them in a bucket with luke warm water straight from the tap. I figure the chlorine in the water will get rid of any unwanted "guests". So far, so good! :)

[JKfish]

huh, good idea Lion mom. I'll do that next time :)

[Lion Mom]

Originally Posted by JKfish

huh, good idea Lion mom. I'll do that next time :)

Thanks - us "Mom's" DO know a thing or two!!!

Forgot to mention before - I leave them in the bucket overnight.