# Scale on Bromeliad



## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

While I've been cutting, planting, potting, and rooting most of my plants, my bromeliads have been stuck off to the side enjoying some sun and regular waterings (the only attention I've been giving them lately, oops). So today I finally get around to a plant count and health check for the broms, all of which were rather happy (if I do say so myself) until I noticed some odd spotting on a bromeliad that should be striped...










GAH! Its has scale!! Its taken over the plant! This plant was destined for the pumilio tank I'm setting up, but obviously I have to get rid of the scale first, and in a way that won't leave bad-for-frogs residue (aka chemicals). I was thinking about just scrubbing the leaves with an algae scrubby pad (one meant for acrylic tanks, tough enough to get it off, soft enough not to damage the leaves) but then you have all the little places I can't reach that they would just repopulate from.

Anything I can dip the plant in to take care of this? Or is this a losing battle?


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## Guest (Apr 7, 2005)

Hey Corey,

I just asked Jon W. about this the other night. He said take a mixture of 30% water and 70% rubbing alcohol and clean the plant removing the scales as you go. He also suggested treating the plants with neem oil http://www.ghorganics.com/NeemOil.html after a week. I am going to be cleaning plants this weekend so haven't tried it yet. Ladybugs also eat scales... so if you are building a greenhouse tank you can add some in there.


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## JoshKaptur (Feb 17, 2004)

Corey,
is that one of my broms? I have a feeling it is since you were reluctant to take a variagated brom... making me think that is the only one you have. If so, I'm [innocently] sorry, because I know nothing about "scale"... but based on your reaction it seems negative. Would this be something that was on it in my collection, or was picked up on your window???? If it will make you feel better, I will try to replace any empty beer bottles in your hand with full ones next time we rub shoulders... plus a refund on the plant.

Josh


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Awwwww I'm sorry Josh  As you guessed, it is your brom (the others are doing wonderfully btw). I don't know where the scale came from... the brom was on its own in the window (not touching other plants) and none of my other plants that i can tell have it, but I'm not worried about it, I just want to get rid of it! To me, scale = evil.

Scale is a parisite that sucks the juices out of a plant, not that bad in small numers, but in huge numbers it can be really bad. Growing up I had a gorgeous ash tree in front of my house that had scale, and eventually it was so bad we cut the tree down (it had been treated for scale for a number of years to no avail).

Empty beer lol, you make me sound like an alcoholic! I'm _IRISH_. Alcoholics go to meetings....


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## harrywitmore (Feb 9, 2004)

*Scale on brome*

Since this is destined for an enclosed environment, if this is not a really hard to replace plant I would not use it. Scale will travel to other plants if they are a good host and this particular scale loves bromes and are virtually impossible to completely get rid of. They hide down in the leaf axles and the cup. But, if you want to give it a try I would use rubbing alcohol full strength and spray the plant down really well while sort of pulling the leaves apart a bit so it can soak down in between them. Let it sit for 2 or three minutes and then rinse the plant removing as much of the infestation as possible.


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## andersonii85 (Feb 8, 2004)

I have used diluted Neem oil with some success. This is an organic oil found on Neem trees I believe, but have no clue if it is frog safe. 

-J


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## rbrightstone (Apr 14, 2004)

Neem oil is not safe for use with frogs. It can cause all kinds of problems in enclosed tanks. If you use warm soapy water after using alcohol as suggegested earlier, between the 2 all the scale should be removed. By the way, use dish soap, and rinse several times. By the way, scale will usually not survive in the moist envionment of our tanks. Good luck.


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## andersonii85 (Feb 8, 2004)

rbrightstone said:


> Neem oil is not safe for use with frogs. It can cause all kinds of problems in enclosed tanks. If you use warm soapy water after using alcohol as suggegested earlier, between the 2 all the scale should be removed. By the way, use dish soap, and rinse several times. By the way, scale will usually not survive in the moist envionment of our tanks. Good luck.


Thanks for clarifying there. I should have said that the plants treated with the oil should not be put in a frog tank. I keep most of my broms as houseplants. I have had many broms develop scale within a vivarium before. It seems to mostly occur on the ones that came from shipments that were grown as landscape plants in Fl. 

-J


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## Evanelectric77 (Mar 17, 2015)

If this had already happened in a tank, do I need to start the tank over or just remove the Broms?


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## mark c (Jun 17, 2010)

I had a scale problem a few years back, but cleared it up by pulling all the bromeliads out and treating them with isopropyl alcohol. The scale seemed to only affect the bromeliads, and not other plants. I did not have to treat anything else.

Rub all surfaces of each and every leaf with Q-tips soaked in straight 99.9% pure isopropyl (wear neoprene or vinyl gloves!). After several seconds of rubbing, the scale will let go and can be rinsed away. I even poured straight isopropyl down into the base of the leaves to get all the way to the bottom. Once it has a few minutes to soak, rinse them off in fresh cold water (warm water is probably harder on them than scale).

Do a couple of treatments, maybe 2 weeks apart. Keep the broms well separated from the vivariums, until you know it is all gone.

Alcohol is hard on the plants and the application is tedious. Depending on how far gone the bromeliads are, they may or may not survive the alcohol treatment. But if they are rare varieties, then it is worth the effort.

Mark


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