Can plants be disease carriers?

[Laughncat]

O.k. O.k. Maybe it's a dumb question, but I felt this was worth asking.

I've been wondering for a while now if it was possible to accidentally infect a tank with a communicatible disease (like the ich) via a plant. For example, an aquatic plant is purchased from an LFS is expericaning an ich outbreak and it's spread to most of the tanks because all their tanks run off the same system. Or the plants are being kept in the same tank as some fish (fairly common practice in my area).

I know it seems silly, but I would hate to accidentally introduce parasites into my tank...

On a side note, part of the reason I wonder this is because plants can be the bearers of other problems, albiet more benign ones. I didn't have any snails in my tank until I bought my first plant. The local petsmart carries plants (one of only two places I know of in my area, and their stuff is just nasty and ill kept. Some of the plants are half dead, while several of the tanks have these little cockroach type insects running around on the inside of the tank

 

[Sye]

Almost all plants come with snails eggs on. If you leave the plants in a quarantine tank for 26 hours with the temperature around 85f the parasites will die as they don’t have a host. I also dip plants in a strong aquarium slat/snail away solution before adding them in a hope that it will kill the snails and or parasites.

 

[Lateral Line]

Yes, plants can carry snails and parasites. Treating them as outlined will prevent some problems, won't necessarily do the plants anygood, but is unlikely to kill them. When it comes to Ich, it is almost impossible to have an Ich free tank. It is in the nature of the parasite to live quietly, unnoticed in seemingly healthy fish etc.

 

[joshua]

oh no! im buying a java moss next week... what should i do? do rams eat snails?

 

[Laughncat]

Thanks for the info. Guess I'll be quarantining my plant purchases from now on.

LOL

I can't help but snicker at the thought of quarantining a plant for some reason...

*snicker*

"That's a bad plant! Bad plant! Now your going to stay in that tank until I feel you learned your lesson about associating with other less...umm...hygenic plants!"

*snicker, snicker*