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New thought for my tank

fishman13

Members
My 40 breeder new design
-Breeding pair of silver angels
-Tan sandy bottom
-Leaves
-Amazon sword
-Little bit of black water
-School of cardinals
I still have to get rid of my african cichlids in this 40 breeder but once they are gone, the aquascaping begins
 

jonclark96

Past CCA President
Sounds like a good start. Almond leaves will work well to give you the natural look and provide tannins for the blackwater effect. I got some from Rachel a while back, so you have a source there.

I have seen mixed results with angels and cardinal tetras. Some folks have not had any issues, some have seen the cardinals slowly get picked off one at a time by hungry angels. I've never had that mix myself, so not sure how it will go for sure.

Good luck with the set up.
 

rich_one

Members
Sounds like a good start. Almond leaves will work well to give you the natural look and provide tannins for the blackwater effect. I got some from Rachel a while back, so you have a source there.

I have seen mixed results with angels and cardinal tetras. Some folks have not had any issues, some have seen the cardinals slowly get picked off one at a time by hungry angels. I've never had that mix myself, so not sure how it will go for sure.

Good luck with the set up.
It's been a really long time, but I once tried to keep angels and neons together... and the neons indeed got picked off one by one over time. Neons and cardinals can be similar in size, so...

That said, I have known of people keeping them together successfully though. So I don't know... worth a shot, I would suppose!

-Rich
 

verbal

CCA Members
Sounds like a nice tank. A couple of recommendations, make sure you have fertilizers for the roots of the amazon swords. You may even want to have a plant substrate topped with sand.

The other is for tetras try to go for a deep bodied tetra that doesn't nip fins. They aren't the easiest to find, but diamond tetras could be a good option.
 

ddavila06

Members
Sounds like a nice tank. A couple of recommendations, make sure you have fertilizers for the roots of the amazon swords. You may even want to have a plant substrate topped with sand.

The other is for tetras try to go for a deep bodied tetra that doesn't nip fins. They aren't the easiest to find, but diamond tetras could be a good option.


swords are heavy root feeders, root tabs will do the trick :D
layer of peat moss could both help make the tank look more, uhmm...look dirtier/more natural and also overtime supply nutrients to the plants. never tried myself though
 

Avatar

Plenipotentiary-at-large
Leave it to me

Sounds pretty. I've found Amazon swords will grow in very shallow sand if the lighting is good. Also that oak leaves yield excellent tannins - I gathered up a couple bags full last autumn and they're great. Seems just about any dry hardwood leaves will work but oak leaves are pretty durable, look good in tanks and have been proven safe and effective by scads of New World keepers. No offense to Rachel but not sure why anyone would buy dried hardwood leaves given the abundance of free and basically unlimited inventory. As soon as they fall off the tree they are ready to be collected and can be stored indefinitely once they are dry.

Seems that hardwood leaves are also excellent for producing infusoria/micro-organism cultures so my previous query about how to establish an in-tank feeding source for young fry seems to have been answered.


http://www.tfhmagazine.com/details/articles/leaves-for-aquaria-full-article.htm
 

mchambers

Former CCA member
Great article. I've taken to making oak leaf tea with the oak leaves I saved last fall and using magnolia leaves in the tanks. I use the oak leaf tea to add tannins to tanks with South American fish. The magnolia leaves seem to keep their structure better than oak leaves, so that they are easier to remove when used up. Keeps the tanks cleaner.

I also use Rachel's Indian almond leaves, which seem to add more tannins per leaf than other species, and also are reputed to have various almost mystical benefits.
 

Avatar

Plenipotentiary-at-large
Tannins are tannins

No one far as I know has ever critically or clinically compared relative merits of different leaf tannins on fish, and since most people use almond leaves they have nothing else to swear by, mystical (please) or otherwise. If I was importing almond leaves I'd try and start a cult about alleged superior virtue as well, and indeed the most glowing accounts I've seen on almond leaves come from the same people who are selling them.

As for New World cichlids, I'd put my money on the "best" tannins being from trees that are actually present in the species' native habitat, the same ones they evolved in and for which they were genetically selected and are now adapted. Unless and until someone starts importing "Amazon mulch", I'm sticking with good old ubiquitous American hardwoods, and probably even afterwards.

Same thing goes for driftwood. Almost everyone uses three species of wood, and none of them are native to the Amazon. Wood is full of many of the same tannins as leaves. Oak, maple and hickory take ages to rot even when wet, and its simply because people are too ignorant, lazy to collect their own sticks or impatient to have it sink that they end up spending big bucks on driftwood (or even worse on fake wood). I myself am guilty (of the former) but am done buying wood - never again.

The magnolia leaves sound interesting given how thick/tough they are, but am guessing the more durable leaves are the less nutrients they provide for culturing micro-organisms. I've got a half-dozen dwarf cichlid species spawning in tanks with oak leaves right now - maybe it's time to start a cult/business/urban mythology - could change my screen name to "Shaman" or "Mahasamatman".:D
 

Forester

Members
Get some malaysian driftwood. I have a ton in my 75g and my amazon swords have grown into the wood and now fill up half the tank!
 
T

tug

Guest
The Oak leaf

FishMan,
I'm new to this hobby. In a lot of ways, I'm not someone you could learn a lot from. Most of what I learn is because things can go wrong and we all know, we have the internet to fix that.

What your question made me think about was, the Oak leaf and mesquite larva. And this is a great time of year to find some. I think a great project would be to raise live food but might take forever before getting around to it. Here is something more temporary. Today, get a tarp to catch small puddles of rain, add a few Oak leaves. After it rains, add a little bit of the mulm from your filter if you like. It really does just fine w/out that. I find my cat prefers drinking the water from the tarp and the small creatures that live there.

No picture of the cat
but I did check it for larva.

They're in there.

The benefit of doing this project, outside the tank, is it will provide you with a bounty of fry food, a soup of good stuff and it's much easier to maintain bod, in the fish tank. I can show you a picture of a tank w/lots of wood and I've added Oak leaves and still do on occasion. The pH will be lower - chose your fish for same. Mostly, it means I have to be aware of keeping everyone breathing. Water flow and circulation issues are all the more importunate.

Nice thread everyone
Thank you
 
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