Potassium pernanganate for plant dip

[bgk245]

Does anyone know a source (preferably in Arlington or Ft. Worth) where I can get potassium permanganate for dipping plants before adding them to my tank? I have a batch of plants that I got by mailorder sitting in an isolation tank because I'm sick of adding snails to my tanks every time I add plants. I did a bleach dip on the hardiest ones, but I have some rotala and anacharis that will melt if it goes anywhere near a solution strong enough to kill snails (tried it once, wasted the money I spent on the plants).

I can order a brand called Permoxyn online, but at $3.80, it costs me more in postage than the price of the bottle. I tried looking around the water conditioning supplies at a couple of stores, and couldn't find it, nor anything like Permoxyn in the aquatic plant supplies at several LFS.

I am soooo sick of snails! I am still picking off descendents from a single lousy red ramshorn that I got in there for about an hour in January, and browns from a plant I bought a few weeks later. It's either find some dip, or they are going to sit in the 5g on my bathroom sink for at least a month before I have the nerve to move them.

[Haiven]

I'm sorry about the red ramshorn. :o

[ElijahTurtle]

Arghhh! I hate snails! I've done good, I've managed to keep my tank snail free for over 2 years. I won't even put plants in it from any local stores. All of them have bad snail problems in their plant sections that I have been too.

[tsunderl]

Arghhh! I hate snails! I've done good, I've managed to keep my tank snail free for over 2 years. I won't even put plants in it from any local stores. All of them have bad snail problems in their plant sections that I have been too.

Same here. My 135 looks like it has pimples.

[bgk245]

I'm sorry about the red ramshorn. :o


Not your fault. It was really dumb of me to toss one in the 25 before I'd looked it up and realized it was just a prettier ramshorn. And most of what I'm finding the last few weeks are brown, so they're from the LFS, not descendents of the reds.

By the way, I threw the reds into my half-barrel pond that first night after I read up on them, feeling a little guilty at the time because it was early January, and I figured it was an icy way to die. Nah - I've got slews of them in there now, scarfing up all the sludge. Not even water cold enough to ice over the surface of the water could kill them.

[bra8ndy8]

Well My loaches love them!!!!! Laura brought a container full of them over....and they ate them ALL!!!! You can send them to me in the mail!!

[bgk245]

I guess if I'm willing to toss them in icewater, sending them through an automated postage scanner can't be worse. :)

But no one can answer the original question?

[bra8ndy8]

LOL..............See!

I can't help u with the ? I don't have alive snails! Sorry~

[Kathy]

Clown Loaches did the trick for me, but here's a thread that I posted in a discus forum not too long ago.

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I have tried every Sears in my area and they look at me like I'm nuts when I ask them if they carry PP. Even the water softening section where it's supposed to be. Finally yesterday I got one guy that gave me the number to the Sears Parts Dept. in my area. While they had me on and off hold for about 45 mins. trying to figure out how or where they could find this stuff, I looked it up on the internet, then gave them the internet address and details to find it. Once they had the part number, we were finally in business.

I'm posting this to hopefully save someone else all this trouble. If your local Sears employees look at you like you have marbles in your head when you go to the water softening dept and ask if they have Potassium Permanganate. Then they reach for the phone to call PETA when asked what you need the PP for and you say "to clean my fish and aquariums". Just do your best to try to squeeze the Sears Parts Ordering number out of them and give them a call. When you reach them, don't waste your breath telling them about fish and tanks...just lie and say you want it for water softening and here is the info:

Part # 3441599
Division # 42
Source # 625

And they will mail it to you. It cost $5.99 for 6oz. and just a few $$ for shipping. I'll give you exacts on shipping when I get the order in. If you still have problems with them finding what you are trying to order, send them to this website http://kenmorewater.com/website/productlist/maintenance/34415-34417-potassium-permanganate.html (http://kenmorewater.com/website/productlist/maintenance/34415-34417-potassium-permanganate.html)

If you are fortunate to live in an area where your local Sears store (or any of the other "home" stores) carry PP...then lucky you!

[Haiven]

Kathy, welcome back! I've missed reading your posts!

[bgk245]

Sounds like I can get the Permoxyn from several aquatic sources for about the same - it's just aggrivating to pay $7 or more in shipping to buy a $4 item. Plus it will take at least a week, and in not much more than that, I'll either have snails showing up in the q-tank or not, so I may just give it up and wait.

By the way, I'm conducting an experiment in the 3g betta tank on my desk at work. I put one snail in there, and for the next 2 weeks, I was cleaning out blobs of snail eggs, while the snail was cleaning out the tank. I have not seen any more eggs in about 2 weeks now, though I'm still getting sand-grain sized little snails from eggs I clearly missed. What I'm trying to see is if there's a point where the big snail has been away from other mature ramshorns so long that it no longer lays eggs, since I've always read that while they're hermaphrodidic, they do need another snail to swap dna. If I can just pick off the little hatchlings before they grow, maybe I can get to a point where I just have one.

I suppose another solution is that now that it's nice and clean, I dispatch the mature snail to insure that it no longer lays eggs, and pick off all but one juvenile every time I see them. That way I get rid of anything old enough to lay eggs and by the time the tank slimes back up, there will be one lone snail that never lived with other mature ones. There are very few algae solutions for small tanks, and this would be a good one if it was somehow possible to have only one.

[bgk245]

I ordered the Permoxyn online (used it as an excuse to order up a bunch of stuff, since I was in for a minimum shipping charge anyway). The plants that could not stand a bleach dip had been hanging out in a 5g, and I was starting to see a few small snails on the sides of the tank, so clearly the dip was needed. It comes in a 4oz bottle, which is enough to treat 5g something like 48 times, so I imagine that I won't have to worry about introducing new ones for a long time. Now I just have to catch the last of the little buggers that are still in my 25!

[kSpieler]

Well, pooh! I wish I had seen this thread a couple of days ago, coulda saved you some $$... I have a jar of PP that is most likely a lifetime supply...for several people!

If you haven't used it yet, be very aware that it WILL stain everything it comes in contact with...and not the lovely purple color of the water, but a dingy brownish color.

When I used it on my wisteria and rotala an ludwigia (yeah, I kant spell) I soaked them for 20 mins in the PP, rinsed them off, soaked them in dechlored tap for 20, then again in a new batch of PP for another 20 mins...then rinsed and soaked for an hour in a x5 strength of dechlored water to be sure all the PP was deactivated. Also, After the first dip, as I rinsed them, I went through each plant and looked for snail eggs...the staining properties makes them relatively easy to see, and they'll rub right off without too much leaf damage.

Heh, I can't really attest to how well this chemical works...cause I still have snailz. But I think they were hiding in my filter tubes...and I had soaked everything - including taking out all the gravel and soaking it - Plants, Rocks, Wood - EXCEPT the filter parts.

Anyhow, I have alot of this stuff...so if anyone wants to try some, let me know...I'll mail ya some.