Experiment w Almond Leaves

[TwoTankAmin]

A lot of fish like leaf litter. Some spawn in it. Some eat off it. Some hide in it.

However, the two main reasons for using almond leaves are because they will stain the water and because they release some healthful things (think anti-oxidants, quercetin etc.).

Lowering pH is neither simple nor easy. If one is doing it for the benefit of keeping fish that need water sofer and more acid than what your tap provides, you need to pre-treat changing water. You need to alter KH and likely GH as well to lower hardness and pH and hold them fairly constant. Catappas will release beneficial things, will stain water, will soften water, but it is not the best way to lower pH.

In order to do the above you will need a digital testing system because it difficult to impossible to use hobby test kits on stained water. I run a continuous monitor.
https://bluelab.com/usa/bluelab-guardian-monitor You can find it for less than at that link if you look. I got mine a number of years ago and it cost around $250. I had to replace the pH probe a while back.

I find alder cones to stain well and also lower pH.

If you want to mess around looking to lower pH using almond leave I would suggest you get a 5 or 10 gal container. You will also need a digital pH tester. These need special care because once wet, if the "tip" dries out the probe is no longer usable. You use a storage solution and a special cap/tube to keep it wet. You also need to have calibration solutions for long term use. I went through a couple of these cheaper alternatives before i realized for longer term I needed a continuous monitor and coughed up the money. You can then test what the almond leaves mught do in your big tank by using a smaller model. if you figure out how many leaves you need to drop the pH in the test setup and multiply that by what % of the big tank you tested in. All you need is an airstone to circulate the water in the container.

I suggest you crumble up the leaves and weigh them before you add them. An accurate gram scale will be needed.

 

[duanes]

7 days after the first 6 leaves were added, pH still reading 8 before today's water change.
So half dozen more leaves were added this morning .

 

[duanes]

By the way I thought I would keep a generic record of water color (turbidity).
I don't have a way to measure Nephflumetric Turbitity units, so ballpark eyeballing will be as technical as I can get.
The pic below was taken 13 days after the first 6 leaves were added, and 3 days after the 2nd 6 were added.
So far no change in water color that I can see.

Last year after a couple storms washed tannins into the tank off surrounding vegetation, the water looked like this (below)

Last year tannins got so concentrated I could barely see to the back wall for a few weeks.

 

[duanes]

Walked the dog past the almond tree this morning, and picked up another half dozen leaves, took a shot to show leaf size, before adding them.

 

[duanes]

Another 7 days since the last leaf addition.Checked water clarity and pH before a 50 gallon water change, still colorless and pH the same at @ 8, then added the half dozen leaves picked a few days ago.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I hope you are patient. You will need way more leaves than you are adding to see a real effect. The tank I referenced in my first post is a 55 gal. I replace the leaves every two weeks. I add about 12 -15 leaves. They are not a unitform thickness or size. If you are serious about your experiment, I would suggest you need to be weighing the leaves not counting them. When buying almond leave you will usually see them graded. O have leaves rate D, C+ and B. The higher the grade, the more they cost,

Next, pay more attention to the chemistry involved. If you had your tank filled with my tap water your results would be way different than your's. The reason for this lies in the KH of the water. GH is also involved. As a rule of thumb the higher the pH the harder the water tends to be and vice versa. Basically, to make harder higher pH water water and a lower pH required one be removing things from the water. Conversely, raising the pH and hardness require that one remove things from the water. The latter is much easier to accomplish in a stable way than the former.

Here is a basic explanation from the FINS site:

Raising and Lowering pH
One can raise or lower pH by adding chemicals. Because of buffering, however, the process is difficult to get right. Increasing or decreasing the pH (in a stable way) actually involves changing the KH. The most common approach is to add a buffer (in the previous section) whose equilibrium holds the pH at the desired value.
Muriatic (hydrochloric) acid can be used to reduce pH. Note that the exact quantity needed depends on the water's buffering capacity. In effect, you add enough acid to use up all the buffering capacity. Once this has been done, decreasing the pH is easy. However, it should be noted that the resultant lower-pH water has much less KH buffering than it did before, making it more susceptible to pH swings when (for instance) nitrate levels rise. Warning: It goes without saying that acids are VERY dangerous! Do not use this approach unless you know what you are doing, and you should treat the water BEFORE adding it to the aquarium.

Products such as ``pH-Down'' are often based on a phosphoric acid buffer. Phosphoric acid tends to keep the pH at roughly 6.5, depending on how much you use. Unfortunately, use of phosphoric acid has the BIG side effect of raising the phosphate level in your tank, stimulating algae growth. It is difficult to control algae growth in a tank with elevated phosphate levels. The only advantage over hydrochloric acid is that pH will be somewhat better buffered at its lower value.

One safe way to lower pH WITHOUT adjusting KH is to bubble CO2 (carbon dioxide) through the tank. The CO2 dissolves in water, and some of it forms carbonic acid. The formation of acid lowers the pH. Of course, in order for this approach to be practical, a steady source of CO2 bubbles (e.g. a CO2 tank) is needed to hold the pH in place. As soon as the CO2 is gone, the pH bounces back to its previous value. The high cost of a CO2 injection system precludes its use as a pH lowering technique in most aquariums (though see the PLANT FAQ for inexpensive do-it-yourself alternatives). CO2 injection systems are highly popular in heavily-planted tanks, because the additional CO2 stimulates plant growth.

Softening Your Water (i.e., lowering GH)
Some fish (e.g., discus, cardinal tetras, etc.) prefer soft water. Although they can survive in harder water, they are unlikely to breed in it. Thus, you may feel compelled to soften your water despite the hassle involved in doing so.
Typical home water softeners soften water using a technique known as ``ion exchange''. That is, they remove calcium and magnesium ions by replacing them with sodium ions. Although this does technically make water softer, most fish won't notice the difference. That is, fish that prefer soft water don't like sodium either, and for them such water softeners don't help at all. Thus, home water softeners are not an appropriate way to soften water for aquarium use.

Fish stores also market ``water softening pillows''. They use the same ion-exchange principle. One ``recharges'' the pillow by soaking it in a salt water solution, then places it in the tank where the sodium ions are released into the water and replaced by calcium and magnesium ions. After a few hours or days, the pillow (along with the calcium and magnesium) are removed, and the pillow recharged. The pillows sold in stores are too small to work well in practice, and shouldn't be used for the same reason cited above.

Peat moss softens water and reduces its hardness (GH). The most effective way to soften water via peat is to aerate water for 1-2 weeks in a bucket containing peat moss. For example, get a (plastic) bucket of the appropriate size. Then, get a large quantity of peat (a gallon or more), boil it (so that it sinks), stuff it in a pillow case, and place it in the water bucket. Use an air pump to aerate it. In 1-2 weeks, the water will be softer and more acidic. Use this aged water when making partial water changes on your tank.

Peat can be bought at pet shops, but it is expensive. It is much more cost-effective to buy it in bulk at a local gardening shop. Read labels carefully! You don't want to use peat containing fertilizers or other additives.

Although some folks place peat in the filters of their tanks, the technique has a number of drawbacks. First, peat clogs easily, so adding peat isn't always effective. Second, peat can be messy and may cloud the water in your tank. Third, the exact quantity of peat needed to effectively soften your water is difficult to estimate. Using the wrong amount results in the wrong water chemistry. Finally, when doing water changes, your tank's chemistry changes when new water is added (it has the wrong properties). Over the next few days, the chemistry changes as the peat takes effect. Using aged water helps ensure that the chemistry of your tank doesn't fluctuate while doing water changes.

Hard water can also be softened by diluting it with distilled water or R/O water. R/O (reverse-osmosis) water is purified water made by a R/O unit. Unfortunately, R/O units are too expensive ($100-$500) for most hobbyists. R/O water can also be purchased at some fish stores, but for most folks the expense and hassle are not worth it. The same applies to distilled water purchased at grocery stores.

from https://fins.actwin.com/aquariafaq.html

 

[duanes]

Because I live on a remote island in the Pacific, buying bulk almond leaves is difficult, if not impossible.
And if allowed thru customs, would be quite expensive, shipping and buying
I am lucky, because there are a few almond trees on the island, I pick leaves up as i find them, so I add what I can when they appear.
Acquiring chemical testing supplies is also quite difficult.
I ordered a new simple API test kit weeks ago, and still has not arrived.
My experiment is to show resuts the average aquarist might see, in an average situation.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I am not sure there is any such thing as an average aquarist or an average tank situation. But good luck with your experiment.

Many years ago I spent a the Xmas n New Years holiday in Panama. I think you might do better keeping salt water fish where you live? ?

 

[C. Breeze]

I am not sure there is any such thing as an average aquarist or an average tank situation. But good luck with your experiment.

Many years ago I spent a the Xmas n New Years holiday in Panama. I think you might do better keeping salt water fish where you live? ?

Did you by chance used to live in Savannah?
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[duanes]

Did you by chance used to live in Savannah?
<1>

No I was originally from Milwaukee.