Trina wrote:

Hi All,

I have a question in regards to the 'safeness' of donated plants from
suspect tanks.
I work with someone who offered to give me some java ferns. I'm not
usually one to pass up something free, but last year when I was at
this person's house, I saw the tank. It pretty much reflected the
whole house.
The tank looked to be a 20gal. There were 4-5 goldfish in there and
there was so much green algae in there you couldn't even see the fish.
Should I be worried about them? I have a quarantine tank (yay!) set up
and obviously would house them in there before subjecting my pets to
them but I don't want to muck that one up if it can be avoided.
This same person also offered me his 20gal tank (fish are dead or..?).
It is currently sitting outside in -30 to -45 weather (should kill
everything?) and I'm wondering how well the sealing would hold up
after being exposed to those temps. Anyone have any thoughts?


Low temperatures will not kill bugs, but preserve them. In the lab we
regularly freeze things and keep them in liquid nitrogen if we want to
keep them alive for decades. Bleach (diluted as by manufacturers
direction) would be a good option if you want to kill any contaminants
from a tank. But do not forget to carefully rinse afterwards.

Algal growth is usually the result of wrong conditions in the tank: too
little or too much light, high content of phosphorus and nitrate. In a
properly maintained tank growth is limited and can be controlled with
catfish or snails, if that is desired.