Blackwater Extract and Loaches

[soul-hugger]

I was just wondering if anyone here has used blackwater extract in your loach tanks. It seems like it would be a good thing, but I just wanted to learn a little more about it before trying. I also heard Indian almond leaves are great, but wouldn't have the faintest idea where to look for them, as I have never seen any at my LFS. If any of you have used these things, how did they work, and would you recommend them?? Thanks a bunch

Merry Christmas!
soul-hugger

[shari2]

rather than extract i use a bag of peat moss in the filtration. if your water is already soft you don't really need it, tho.

Indian almond leaves are great in loach tanks, but i have yet to find any around here (NJ, USA). I have used slightly boiled oak leaves, however. the fish love them, but they do degrade over time and need to be replaced/removed.

[Diana]

Ditto shari:
I have peat moss from the garden center in several tanks, and this is close enough to blackwater extract, and a lot cheaper. I have been using the same bale of peat moss for years, and it is only half gone!

Indian Almond Leaves are often available on line, you might try fish related auction sites, or sites with a very active sale forum.

I have used oak leaves of several species, as well as bark in my tanks. The Panaque group of catfish eat the bark, and both bark and leaves do fall apart over time, adding their acids to the tank slowly.

Fish that come from rain forest streams are most likely to thrive in tanks with black water extract (or reasonable substitutes). The slower moving water in the shade of trees will accumulate leaf litter and become quite acidic. This sort of water, high in tannic and other organic acids will slow the growth of bacteria, and some of the fish from such water are quite dependent on this bacteriastatic activity.

Fish from faster moving water, or water that does not pick up leaves very much have no need for blackwater extract. Whether it is actually harmful or not I have no idea.

[chefkeith]

I was playing a nature trivia game with the family the other day and one question was about how there was no leaf litter in a tropical rain forest because they don't have a change of seasons.

[Joe Khul]

Diana - Can you recommend any good online sites for IAL?

[soul-hugger]

Thank-you for the replies!

I may just try the peat moss from the garden centre; I love gardening almost as much as I love fishkeeping! I'm sure I could find another use or two for it I was reading the bottle of blackwater extract, and it appears it also has several vitamin additives, but it I seem to trust something natural more than one you can get in a bottle. One day I may have to change this way of looking at these things if I find it to be flawed, but it seems so often if there are two ideas, the simpler of them turns out to be true. I think they call it Occam's razor?? I'm not sure where I could even get oak leaves; not many grow in this area...it is more elm and aspen, poplar and cottonwood. I wonder if any of these would work? I do hear they deteriorate after awhile, but that would be one more thing to watch. I like to look at leaves that have rotted, leaving a delicate skeleton behind.

Cheifkeith, they do have leaf litter in a rainforest, but nothing survives there on the ground for very long. There are many complex bacteria and fungi who live here, many times more than exist anywhere else. These are responsible for the rapid consumption and re-release of the nutrients the leaves and other detrius contain. In fact, some trees that live in the rainforests lack the fine hair-roots we see in other trees elsewere in the world. Instead they are dependent on particular fungi who take in the nutrients and make them available to the trees. There is such intense competition in the jungle that anything hoping to survive has to work very fast, and very well. I have always found rainforests fascinating... they are one of my favourite subjects, so it would be no surprise my favourite fish and loaches would come from here too. If you are interested in this subject, check out the book The Private Life of Plants by David Attenborough. The bit about fungi in rainforests, I learned from watching the jungle section of the 5 DVD set Planet Earth. It is quite expensive, but well worth the money spent.

Take care all,
soul-hugger

[chefkeith]

I protest because I got the leaf litter question wrong 2 times now. Btw, it was The BBC Planet Earth DVD trivia game.

I guess there is no right answer if the leaf litter doesn't last long because if it doesn't last long, then there is no leaf litter.

[Emma Turner]

I usually buy my dried Indian Almond leaves from Amy Lim on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Amys-50-LRG-B-IND ... m153.l1262 I would normally buy her Grade A leaves but she doesn't seem to have any listed at the moment. I would think the Grade B's were pretty good too though. Scroll down on that link to read more about Amy and the leaves. I believe she sells on Aquabid too.

Emma

[Diana]

Rain forest trees do shed their leaves, but new ones grow before the old ones are shed. This makes the trees evergreen (they are not conifers, that is another definition of evergreen).
As noted above, the leaves rot so fast there is not a lot of litter on the forest floor. The nutrients are recycled into the plants very quickly.

I would say try Elm, Cottonwood, Poplar (same as Cottonwood) and Aspen in the aquarium. They are not toxic. I think they will rot very quickly, though.

[soul-hugger]

Cheifkeith, you make me laugh.... you are certainly right- if the leaf litter is eaten, then there is none!! I didn't know there was a trivia game for Planet Earth... now I'll have to get that too!

Emma, thank-you for the link. It looks like this person really tries hard to give a good quality product. I have never ordered anything online before, but I'd like to try!

Even though I have added wood to my tanks, and they are planted, the pH doesn't seem to want to drop below 7.2 or so. My town has RO water which on its own has a pH of a perfect 7. I am wondering now why the pH in my tanks is higher than the original water, if maybe it's because of something in the gravel or other decorations. Most of the gravel is common smooth river stone, a small size. At first I was using distilled water to try to lower this number, but someone at my LFS told me the distilled is not good for the fish and plants because it lacks the nutrients present in tapwater. Then I learned RO is usually devoid of nutrients anyway. Sometimes I wonder about those people who work at LFS, if they really give good information. The guy who own my favourite LFS (not a big box chain) is the only one whose answers I would really trust, having many years' experience. I have been slowly accumulating water test kits, the first of which I bought were ammonia, nitrite, and pH. Now I would like to try the kH test to see what the total hardness really is. I suppose with the pH alone, I'm not really getting a clear picture. When I first got into fishkeeping I had no idea how expensive and involving it would be! But it seems once you fall in love with it, dropping a hundred or two (or more!) on tanks and supplies is really no big deal, though for me that is a healthy chunk of what I make. I don't know whether that should make me feel embarassed or a little proud of this small eccentricity.

soul-hugger