# Help Plant Selaginella



## Leopardgeckos (Apr 23, 2010)

I need alittle help with this bugger. How would i remove this from a pot and plant it. Also is it possible to clean it>


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

It will tolerate a 10 minute soak in a 5 percent bleach solution. They take easily in moist vivs. Just tear a clump out, with or without roots and tuck it into some sphagnum. Make sure the sphagnum stays moist and it will do fine.


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## Leopardgeckos (Apr 23, 2010)

thanks alot man


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## Dartfrogfreak (Jun 22, 2005)

OMG NO! No way, Try more like a 1 gallon jug with a 1/4 cup of bleach for your mixture. Just premix with that ratio and use as you need it. and a 2-5 min soak at most!!!!!!!
Then rinse with a dechlorinator.


When you plant. make sure you plant it in an evenly moist substrate. with high humidity and frequent mistings for the first week or so. allowing its foliage to dry off between those mistings

Todd


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Dartfrogfreak said:


> OMG NO! No way, Try more like a 1 gallon jug with a 1/4 cup of bleach for your mixture. Just premix with that ratio and use as you need it. and a 2-5 min soak at most!!!!!!!
> Then rinse with a dechlorinator.
> Todd


I have done this myself with selaginella several times with no problems. Many of us on the board have done this with even stronger bleach solutions for longer periods of time. There is nothing wrong with this method. Obviously you will need to rinse plants well afterwords. Some references to back this.
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/beginner-discussion/56643-quaratine-vivarium-plants.html
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/plants/59987-home-depot-question.html
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/identification-forum/55217-aquatic-microfauna.html
And perhaps the best recommendation, here is a link to a thread listing the ASN proceedure. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/ge...t/26685-asn-quarantine-medical-protocols.html
You may want to note that your solution is rather weak and too short to protect your frogs from much. Particularly when you are recommending to premix it and it only has a half life of two hours. By the end of the day your stored solution is little better than tap water.
Few of us bother with a dechlorinator but it wouldn't hurt. I have bleached plants, rinsed them, and put them in with frogs 24 hours later and never had a single problem.


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## Dartfrogfreak (Jun 22, 2005)

I used to use a similar method as you until I started having some issues with plants NOT making it afterwards. Your 5% bleach solution for 6 minutes Ive killed both Selaginellas and Begonias. Tho this could have been the temps in some cases but I doubt it. as I struggled to get the slippery feeling off of my plants and my hands.
After talking to Manuran about bleaching mosses I decided to start using the same solution on all my plants as I would use on moss.

You may be right about the solution having a short life span tho, Ill look into this more carefully. 


Todd


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## Dartfrogfreak (Jun 22, 2005)

Hey my fault I appoligize,after reading part of that ASN, I realized my old procedure was a 10% solution.

The mix I suggested I believe is 2%, what ratio would you use to get 5%? Im really bad with math


Todd


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## MeiKVR6 (Sep 16, 2008)

Dartfrogfreak said:


> Hey my fault I appoligize,after reading part of that ASN, I realized my old procedure was a 10% solution.
> 
> The mix I suggested I believe is 2%, what ratio would you use to get 5%? Im really bad with math
> 
> ...


3/4 Cup per gallon is just shy of 5%.  (.8 cup to be exactly 5%)

5% solution is pretty much industry standard for processing non-sensitive flora. Generally selaginella isn't a problem plant, although it's slightly sensitive. You could get away with a heavy rinse of straight water, so long as there's no soil attached in my opinion.


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## Dartfrogfreak (Jun 22, 2005)

Thanx, and the more I think of it, I may have messed up the original mix that was suggested to me, it may have been 1/2 cup per gallon, somehow without realizing it I may have changed it to 1/4 by accident.


Todd


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## kwnbee (Feb 8, 2011)

So this may seem obvious, but I need to know for sure. When you say "soak" the plants in bleach solution do you mean the entire plant, foliage, and roots?


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## Dartfrogfreak (Jun 22, 2005)

I clean all of the soil and debri off the roots then soak the whole plant. make sure you rinse extremely well


Todd


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## kwnbee (Feb 8, 2011)

Thanks.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Dartfrogfreak said:


> I clean all of the soil and debri off the roots then soak the whole plant. make sure you rinse extremely well
> 
> 
> Todd


Yes, that's what I do too. Do your best to get all, or at least as much as you possibly can, of the old soil out of the roots. The old soil could be saturated with fertilizers and pesticides. 
Ideally, to really be safe, you should pot the plant back up with new, frog safe, soil and grow it for 6 months to allow the plant time for systemic pesticides to break down and wear off.
Dartfrogfreak, not a problem. You are right that it can be too much for some mosses. I treated a batch of live, green, sphagnum moss and it was completely yellow when I pulled it out. I decided to put it over some dead sphagnum moss in a temp container under a shop light and by the time I was ready to use it, (6-8 weeks), it was showing good green growth again. Since then, I have cut my soak time on other mosses down to about 2-3 minutes. Never had a problem with a full soak on Selaginella, though.

Another way to look at 5 percent is this. A nickle is 5 percent of a dollar. 20 nickles in a dollar. So one part ordinary household bleach added to 19 parts water. Oh, and it should be about room temperature.


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