No such thing as pest free, regardless of the source. One needs to inspect and dip every frag and quarantine all critters. Pests can also be brought in on plant material as well. Plants can also be treated for pests. Plant biologists sterilize tissue with a dip in 70% ethanol or dilute bleach, but I don't remember the specifics.
Happy reefing!
If possible, can you elaborate on how plant biologist sterilize plant tissue. I am attempting to be a commercial grower of seaweed: Mariculture, both utility & ornamental. With respect to ornamental macro, I used hydrogen peroxide as the sterilizing agent on Halymenia digitata. Because of its high resale value in reefkeeping hobby it merited special effort.
Fo me, a hydrogen peroxide dip of 10% concentrate oxidizes all organics, including human skin. Given time, it will eat away slime coat on coral. When I am not wanting hitch hikers, especially nuisance algae, I dip coral for 10 minutes. It is utter destruction for micro inverts as I see pods & mini starfish along with bristle worms and Red Planaria die within 30 seconds. For delicate corals, I ramp soak time down.
Hoping to find a cocktail dosage & soak time that was detrimental to biofilm & nuisance epilates on macro surface without distroying ornamental macro algae. I used differrent concentrations and differrent soak times. Details are in a thread somewhere, but so as not to bore you, I will surmise findings.
Bad stuff is more hardy than good stuff. Just as in a garden, you must work to enhance the good by eliminating the bad. In the case of my garden, I weed by hand.
I inadvertently destroyed my inventory of Dragons Tongue by testing away my inventory. I left one specimen isolated in quarantine to protect it from extinction. It died in quarantine to Cynobacteria which was not apparent to visual inspection.
