EnhancingThe Mood

[Scatocephalus]

Took my son collecting Monday night. Collecting oak leaves that is...

I added a full garbage bag of dried oak leaves to the tank. Enough to cover 1/2 the tank about 6" deep in leaves.

2 days later and the water is so brown the fish disapear if they are near the back of the tank. The pH has dropped from 8.4 to 7.0. No change in softness.

The fish look amazing! If you casually glance at the tank, reds disapear almost completely and simply look brown but are blazing red if you get close and take a good look. Golds and yellows pop and look like there are little lights on the fish's fins. The gold on the C. kelberi looks like it is literally glowing.

The female Cr. sp. lenticulata is already starting to exhibit a pink belly while showing red along her back. The male's back is getting red as well.

The orange spots on the P. motoro look like little signal lights.

All in all the fish look amazing in this blackwater habitat. I want to add even more leaves and plan on collecting another 2 or 3 bags (much to my son's dismay!). I'm aiming at having the entire bottom of the tank covered with about 10"-12" of litter.

One interesting observation thus far. The fish seem to be incredibly mellow with the added leaves. Not sure if the tanins have a "mood altering" effect or if the change simply has the fish wondering what's going on so being territorial is not high on their list at the moment.

I'll take some pics after I add the extra leaves and post them up. It looks pretty cool. Hopefully it makes the fish feel nasty as well!!

 

[Tongue33]

HOLEY SMOKE!!! 12" of leaves!!! That's got to be an interesting sight all in it;s own!! I bet they look awesome..

 

[Scatocephalus]

The rays are funny to watch. I thought they'd be trying to bury themselves in the leaves and making a huge mess but they'd rather sit on top of them.

 

[Hawkfish3.0]

Very interesting. I'm eagerly awaiting the pics.

 

[StripeGirl]

don't they make an extract to get this effect??

 

[hamato_yoshii]

 

[ShadowStryder]

This all sounds very interesting and very attactive tank setup. But isn't the decomposition of the leaves going to create a water quality issue. I mean being as this is a closed environment where it isn't recieving an influx of fresh water daily. Unless of course you have a drip system hooked up.
Are you planning on hooking up your RO unit again to lower the hardness or are you gonna use some other method to lower it.

 

[Scatocephalus]

don't they make an extract to get this effect??

Yes but the amount it takes for me to treat my tank and see results makes it very cost prohibitive. Price wise, it's pretty hard to beat oak leaves that you find on the ground.

This all sounds very interesting and very attactive tank setup. But isn't the decomposition of the leaves going to create a water quality issue. I mean being as this is a closed environment where it isn't recieving an influx of fresh water daily. Unless of course you have a drip system hooked up.

Are you planning on hooking up your RO unit again to lower the hardness or are you gonna use some other method to lower it.

I've done it in the past and have had no issues with water quality whatsoever. The leaves don't rot, get fungusy and fall apart like most people assume. In fact, they sort of disintergrate much like driftwood does. After about 2 months the leaves are more of tiny bits on the bottom where they are very easy to siphon out. And, as you pointed out, I have the drip system. It is turned way down at the moment so that I'm not flushing out the tanins as quickly as they are added.

And yes, I plan on hooking the RO back up. The only reason it is off at the moment is due to an O-ring failure. One of the filter canisters didn't seal properly and leaked everywhere. Once I replace the O-ring I'll be back in business. That will give me the soft water. When coupled with the tanins and their pH lowering capabilities I should have a relatively true-to-form blackwater biotope.

Regarding the tanins. I think they are a much overlooked aspect of breeding some of the more difficult fish. Everybody concentrates on softening the water and dropping the pH but I suspect the tanins are just as important. Their effect upon the water's chemical composition and/or their ability to trigger breeding behaviour in fish is greatly overlooked.

I'll be wiping down algae later today and will post pics tonight.

 

[StripeGirl]

could you fill a section of a sump with oak leaves for this affect??

 

[Scatocephalus]

could you fill a section of a sump with oak leaves for this affect??

Sure. Just make sure they aren't going to clog your pump intake.

You could also fill a nylon bag with peat and place it in your sump.

You mentioned black water extract in a previous post. You can make your own and I find it is much more effective than the commercial stuff made by Tetra.

I fill a 6 quart pan half full with peat, fill with water and then bring to a boil on the stove. I then turn the heat down and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Add water occasionaly to prevent the pan from boiling dry and to keep the pan topped off.

After simmering, I take the contents and pour it through a bath towel into a 5 gallon bucket. The towel filters out the solid particulate matter and lets the "extract" through to the bucket. This gives me about 3 quarts of highly concentrated "black water extract". Once this cools I simply pour it into the sump and let it pump into the tank.

I would make three batches of this over the course of a week and add it to the tank. It most definitely makes the tank water turn very dark and does not make for the best visual display but it does wonder for the fish. I've had certain fish color up and breed for me after adding the "peat juice" that otherwise had I hadn't had any luck with.

And while they didn't breed for me, I actually had a female Cr. jegui color up and at least act like she wanted to breed after treating the tank water in the described manner. Unfortunately the male caused her to jump to her death before I had the opportunity to see the project through.