What to do?

[MrsE88]

**Please move this if it would be better suited to a different forum**

Now that fall is just about here in the north my mom has shut her ornamental pond down for good. That means I just received all her plants and pond equipment.

I'm not sure what to do at the moment. I have a 30gl plastic tub full to the top with hornwart, hyacinth, and a water lily.
The plan originally was to disperse the plants between my tanks in the house. I can't really toss them in my pond outside because my koi will shred/eat them all.

Here is my problem. There were no fish in with them for the last month at least. Just tadpoles. While scooping some tadpoles out I saw something on its tail. It was a tiny baby leach>.<

What do I do? Will leaches hurt my fish? Or will they likely eat them instead?
Should I do a peroxide dip? Will that kill the pond snails? I really wanted to keep the pond snails.

Ugh, I'm not even sure how leaches got in her pond in the first place.

 

[#.$]

Leaches can be nasty little guy i would kill and treat everything before adding it to you existing set up

 

[rucus]

I second Mario. You should be very cautious about adding anything from the pond into your indoor tanks.

 

[MrsE88]

So the peroxide dip then?

I've never had issues brining in plants when I had a water garden, but I'm not really sure what my mom added in hers.
I guess I'll just hand pick the snails I want to keep before treating the plants and then quarantine them for a while before adding to the tanks.

 

[duanes]

Water Hyacinth will usually not last a winter inside, unless you put next to a south facing window, and add lots of heavy duty grow lights, on timers. Artificial light alone has never been sufficient for me.
The hyacinth would last a few months, then start to rot and foul the water.
You'd probably be better off letting the koi have at it, outside.
Even in a south facing window mine did OK for a while, but I believe the window glass filters out important UV the hyacinth needs.

 

[tlindsey]

I second Mario. You should be very cautious about adding anything from the pond into your indoor tanks.

+1

 

[MrsE88]

duanes Thank you. I remember you saying that when I asked how to winter them over earlier this summer.
I don't expect them to make it. The tank is in the corner with windows on both sides. East/south. It will be an experiment to see how they do. Since they were given to me free, why not?
I would give them to my koi to chow down on, but they will clog up my filters. That's why next year I'll be making another pond just for plants and a bigger quarantine for any new fish.

Something I'm debating on is this; should I grow them like in your picture.... or since my glass tops fit fairly tight on top should I drop the water level and keep the tops on possibly giving them a warmer/humid atmosphere?