- Messages
- 170
- Location
- Amarillo'Texas
Is it just that throwing leafs of any kind in atank is more for the fry then to help the fish breed. Or do ya'll thank it's ahelp in adding oak leafs o a tank?
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will oak leafs help?
- Thread starter Apisto ranch
- Start date
- Messages
- 144
- Location
- Abingdon, MD
I tried to see what different leaves will do to the water. So I took some oak leaves and added them to boiling (tap) water. My PH dropped from 6.6 to 6.4. I tried the same thing with maple (the other most popular tree in Virginia) leaves and the PH when from 6.6 to 6.7. I would definatly stay away from maple.
Someone once told me that you can use any leaf from the family that oaks are in. From my hill-billy knowledge that includes beech and hickory and I think walnut.
I have no experience with those other leaves I just tried oak and maple.
Someone once told me that you can use any leaf from the family that oaks are in. From my hill-billy knowledge that includes beech and hickory and I think walnut.
I have no experience with those other leaves I just tried oak and maple.
- Messages
- 138
- Location
- Canyon Creek, AZ
In my experience oak leaves have almost no effect on water chemisty in the amount that I have placed them in my tank (around 25 leaves in a 20 long). I have two reasons for adding oak leaves into my tanks. The first is to give the tanks a more natural appearence, the second is provide cover for the fish. This can be especially helpfull when dealing with aggressive apistos. It provides a lot of areas for them to disappear into. Oaks are in the the family Fagaceae while walnuts are members of Juglandaceae. I am not familiar with beech and hickory.
Trevor
Trevor
- Messages
- 170
- Location
- Amarillo'Texas
I added oak leafs yesterday morning and the PH was 7.2. I got up this morning and tested the water and it 7.3 so go figure that . LOL I'll test again later to see what the readings are.
- Messages
- 271
- Location
- Vancouver,BC
Apisto ranch said:
For the leaves to work properly you need to start off with soft water, like RO water, so that you can drop the ph.
IME Oak/Almond leaves in harder alkaline water require alot more leaves to drop the ph. In fact they probably won't do much with that ph.
I used almond leaves (which are supposed to be better than oak leaves), in a planted tank with a ph of 7.0 and about 15 large leaves only dropped the ph to 6.8.
However in tanks without buffer(and our soft BC tap water) even 3-4 large leaves dropped the ph from 6.8 to 5.2 over a course of 3 weeks.
