Decontaminating a plant

Marty · #1 (**permalink**) 10-29-2006, 01:51 PM

Any ideas how to decontaminate a plant ? I got 2 amazing bromeliads from Home Depot.

Last time, I put a plant from a hardware store and 3 of my D. ventrimaculatus darts died within a few days

. It must have had some pesticides.

any ideas will be much appreciated. Do you think, just soaking and rinsing the plants will be good enough ?

Tindomul1of9 · #2 (**permalink**) 10-29-2006, 06:50 PM

If its pesticides, I would definetly give the plant a shower. A few of them. Not sure what more can be done though.

littlefrog · #3 (**permalink**) 10-30-2006, 04:37 PM

Soak, rinse, repeat. Use a few drops of detergent in the first rinse. If you are worried about biological contamination, dip the plant in 5 or 10% bleach for a few minutes. Rinse well immediately afterwards. I guess for a brom I'd make sure to dump out the 'cup' and rinse that well too.

Probably the best way to make sure your plant is residue free is to grow it out of the viv for a few weeks to a month. When you water, wash the whole plant well. Almost any pesticide that can be used on ornamental crops will have an active life shorter than that, and a few good rinses with water should remove any surface residue. Then go ahead and rinse it a few times before you put it in the viv.

jbph74 · #4 (**permalink**) 02-08-2007, 08:23 PM

What did you finally do with Bromeliads before putting them in and did it work? I haven't ever used them but I got one yesterday for my new set up which will have a juvie White-lipped and I'm worried about putting it in with such a young frog. So long as I repot and rinse-rinse-rinse my adult White's have never had an adverse reaction to any plants.