# Collecting/Keeping Wild Plants



## fuzzyletters (Jan 20, 2007)

Hi,

There's this little cluster of really neat looking plants in this stream in my girlfriend's backyard that I was thinking about taking a stem from... unfortunately, this would be my first experience with a planted tank, I think the only thing I can keep it in atm is a vase, and I don't really know how to go about providing for a native plant like that. Anyone do this themselves? Any advice? Thanks...


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

You could put the plant in a small container with some type of substrate and set it in the window sill or out on the patio and see whats happen. I've never tired it before but others have, maybe they will chime in.


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## JG06 (Nov 5, 2006)

Back when I was a kid, my dad and I would go out and run around the local swamps in his duck hunting boat and I collected a lot of aquatic vegetation for the "native" aquarium I kept on his bar. It was my experience that all the native vegetation I collected would either die or grow like a wildfire once I brought it home and put it in my aquarium. I can't ever remember having trouble with disease or parasites being brought with my plants, but then again, the healthy stock of bass, sunfish, mosquito fish, and catfish I maintained in that aquarium probably ate all the little creepy-crawlies that arrived with the plants. But until they were gone, the hydra, freshwater limpets, and snails were neat to watch. Further, I regularly had to thin the frogbit, bladderwort, and duckweed popuations and the elodea grew just fine. 

Personally, I can't see any harm in trying a few wild collected species in your aquarium. You might want to keep in mind that you could potentially be importing new types of bacteria, fungus, snails, etc. that may not mix well with your current aquarium species. You'll just have to give it whirl and see what happens.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

I've collected and planted in my tanks various species of plants and never had any trouble with them. What I do is meticulously go through every part of the plant and manually remove anything which even remotely looks like it might be an invasive critter or an egg sac. I wash it thoroughly with running water, then inspect it another time to make sure I didn't miss anything the first time. Never had any problems (knocks on wood) and all I ever collected grew well in my tanks. Some of the stuff I have collected: Saggitaria subulata, Val species, Proserpinaca palustris, Bacopa caroliniana, L. repens, L. palustris, L. cardinalis.

There are folks who collect and dip the plants (H2O2, bleach) prior to putting them in the tank to help killing off any nasties.


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