I also found out the hard way with plants from Oriental as I lost some shrimps (so did a friend who got plants from me) by adding newly imported plants into a tank with inverts. But I figured out pretty quickly what the problem was and it hasn’t happened again.
I have to say that I am MUCH happier knowing that efforts are being taken to prevent the export of a potential pest. The deaths of a few of my shrimps was a learning curve. There is no reason to stop using these plants, just take a few precautions. (importers should take the lead here, as I have)
A large part of my working life has been devoted to non-native species such as grey squirrels, Japanese Knotweed, Crassula, Giant Hogweed etc
I personally find that placing the plants into buckets of tap water and giving them a 100% water change east day for a week removes all toxins and then i put them in my tanks – with inverts too.
