Surface Sterilisation

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Surface Sterilisation
From: trigg at jane_cs.waikato.ac.nz
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 95 10:40:51
In-Reply-To: <199506251939.PAA07558 at looney_actwin.com> (from Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com) (at Sun, 25 Jun 1995 15:39:03 -0400)


As a follow on from the import/quarantine discussion, does anyone
have ideas on the best methods for sterilization of plants before
moving them between tanks or between countries?

The common method (the one I use) is the 1:19 bleach solution
method, which seems to work fine without seriously damaging most
plants.  But some plants seem to be more affected by it than
others (for some reason when I do it to vallisenaria the leaves
all melt and it takes ages to grow back - yet other plants that I
would consider more delicate than vallisenaria seem to handle it
better).  If this treatment were coupled with a period of
extended dark (eg the transport time from one country to
another), the plants would probably suffer more.

Are there any other sterilization methods that are likely to be
less harmful to the plants??

Cheers,
	Len.
-- 
 Len Trigg ===================================================
 Comp Sci Grad   DoD#1334   trigg at cs_waikato.ac.nz             
 Waikato Uni     GPX250     http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~trigg          
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