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