Quarantining Plants

[maycausedeath]

A few days ago at my lfs I picked up a banana plant, dwarf anubias, and marimo ball. Everything was fine and dandy and I was about to plop them into my tank when I spotted a snail. I removed it, but I'm afraid there may be more.

Right now they're sitting in a container of tap water. I do not have bleach in my house. What can I do to make sure there's nothing dangerous/completely obnoxious on my plants?

[baylee767]

Just put them in a container with tap water and no conditioner, it'll kill off the creatures on there from chorine/heavy metals/chloramines/what ever else is in your tap. It doesn't harm the plants, too. Also, wouldn't bleach harm the plants?

[maycausedeath]

Okay thanks!

I've heard some people mix really small amounts of bleach with water and dip them in it, but it just sounds too dangerous.

[Alex09]

I have done a bleach dip for my java ferns before. They are very slow growers and they tend to accumulate algae. The bleach dip eradicated the algae and the java fern is tough enough to pull through. I do a 5% bleach solution (1 cup bleach, 19 cups water) and leave the plant in there for about 3-4 min. After that I put the plants in another container with fresh water and extra dechlor.