TuesdaysChild

Can I bleach these plants? If I can, how would I do it? Also, what is the best way to fertilize them? I was thinking of switching my substrate to eco-complete sand. Would that do the trick for all of them or would I still need to add something to the water?

Amazon Sword
Java Fern and moss
Hornwort and/or cabomba
Anacharis
floating and regular water sprite
red wendtii, bronze wendtii
narrow leaf chain sword
lutea
moneywort
broad leaf ludwigia or might be red leaf
ciliata crypt

Thanks!!

Shawnie

I have no answer but was wondering what the purpose of bleaching them was?

tzqng8

My guess: Snails?

I know virtually nothing about plants. But I wanted to play.

Shawnie

hahahah your grounded!! but snails is a great guess...

andy65

I would use Potassium Permanganate,PP, not bleach. You can find PP at a big box home store. Just call and see if they have it. Its used to regenerate a water filter.

Here is a link on how to do it.

I hope this helps.

TuesdaysChild

I thought it would kill any worms that might be on the plants but I can't see. I've found a few worms on some of these plants and am hoping the bleach would take care of them.

TuesdaysChild

Will the potassium kill any unwanted hitch hikers?

Shawnie

ahh ok...ive read before here that getting a bucket of ICE water, let it sit for a few minutes, then dip each plant in it a few times works well...im not a plant person so hopefully the person that this worked for reads this

tzqng8

I totally get like half a point or something, right? I mean, I was close.

TuesdaysChild

Actually the floating water sprite I got was INFESTED with snails. I'm sure I missed some picking them off so getting any that I missed would be an added bonus. My main reason for wanting to bleach though is the worms that came in on the plants.

joy613

About the fertilizing question you have heavy root feeders like the sword and crypt those will need some root tabs and the rest will want some water column fertilizers. With the hornwort and anacharis don't use exel because the anacharis will melt and I have personal experience with the hornwort shedding its needles. I haven't used eco complete but am using fluorite and a mix of fluorite and aqua soil (cheap substrate for planted tank) and still fertilize. I use compact fluorescent bulbs in my tanks and do need to fertilize when the algae starts to grow more than I want I do use excel as my CO2 source. Some day soon I hope to set up a diy CO2 system on my 40 gallon tank.

Barbrella

I recently bleached some plants because of fear of disease.

I used 1 part bleach to 19 parts of water, and dipped the plants for about one minute.

The plants were not harmed by this.

Shawnie

maybe 1/4 ...dont want ya to get a swelled head or nuffin!!