# Leaf Litter Questions



## Pamela (Apr 21, 2010)

I'm thinking about doing a leaf litter instead of a substrate in a couple of my tanks. I was planning on using either Oak or Maple leaves that have fallen on the ground. 

Is it okay to use leaves collected in my neighbourhood or would there be too much pollution on them (I live near Hastings Street & not far from the Chevron refinery)? Am I just being paranoid 

Would it be better to bake the leaves or boil them to kill bacteria & any insects on them? 

Roughly how long should I expect to be able to leave them in my tank ...a month, 2 months, longer?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks


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## davefrombc (Apr 21, 2010)

Sorry I can't answer your question directly Pam.. It did make me curious, so I did a search on oak and maple leaves in aquariums.. Both are considered safe, and are supposed to release some tannins into the water. I didn't see any statement on how long they would last before disintegrating. My guess would be they would likely slightly acidify the tank ( drop the pH some) . They may make a good substrate for killie or shrimp tanks. As for cleaning them .. I think a good wash/ boil would kill off any harmful bacteria there may be there and remove any surface pollutants. Whether there would be any pollutants taken up by the leaves as they grew released and become harmful as the leaves break down would be open to speculation . . My gut feeling is there should be no problem if the leaves are well rinsed off before adding to the tank .


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## Jasonator (Jul 12, 2011)

Sounds like a very interesting experiment... 

Maybe collect leaves from a less populated area - good excuse to go for a hike 
Then, set up a 'practice' tank

Love to hear how it goes!


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Oak Leaves - The Free Freshwater and Saltwater Aquarium Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit - The Aquarium Wiki


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

I love this question, in part because so many people think you have buy leaves only of a certain type, from overseas. In reality any dead autumn hardwood leaf will do.

>leaves need to be autumn leaves, ie with the chlorophyll reabsorbed by the tree. Otherwise the leaves just decompose, the way a leaf of Romain lettuce would. This fall is a poor leaf crop as most hardwood leaves have way too much chlorophyll left in them. It's the price of a colourful fall.
>they must be "cide" free -herbicide, fungicide, pesticide - and not be treated with any other agricultural chemicals;
>they must be collected from low traffic areas, such as small side streets or local parks. Check with your city re "cide" use on puplic land. (Port Coquitlam is "cide free" on all city property, so collecting in local parks is safe. It's where I get most of the leaves I use.)
> use common sense- leaves close to the base of a pole or tree are likely to have dog urine on them;
>use leaves unrinsed if you wish to grow a lot of aufwuchs; rinse and soak if not, and to remove some of the tannin;
>to store leaves, rinse and dry flat , then bag and seal;
>size the leaves to the tank- a tulip tree leaf will over power a 5gallon;
>some leaves last a long time and make a good substrate. I use mostly oak, tulip tree and London plane. Mulberry is very popular for shrimp.
>peach tree leaves disappear very quickly, but shrimp go crazy for them.

There some exceptions that I'm aware of. ;
>banana leaves may be harvested while green, then dried, for use as *food* for fish and inverts; collect dead autumn leaves to take advantage of the anti fungal/antibacterial properties, similar to (and documented like) Indian Almond
>horse chestnut and chestnut are recommended to be collected green. I haven't found out why, yet.

I know others will have more to add

edit: Green-picked walnut leaves have anti fungal/ antibacterial properties (source:Crustaforum)


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Storms' above post summarizes it all. That's why I started collecting some oak leaves this fall. Although the big difference I've noticed so far is that the almond leaves produce a lot more tannins. I don't dose any medications ever since I've put almond leaves into my tank. I find less fungal and ich breakouts. The fish are a lot happier.


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

jobber604 said:


> Storms' above post summarizes it all. That's why I started collecting some oak leaves this fall. Although the big difference I've noticed so far is that the almond leaves produce a lot more tannins. I don't dose any medications ever since I've put almond leaves into my tank. I find less fungal and ich breakouts. The fish are a lot happier.


"the fish are a lot happier" sums it up beautifully.

for anti fungal and antibacterial properties, you can use:

Indian Almond leaves
Indian Almond bark (more potent)
bananas
blended, crushed Indian almond and banana tea bags 
organic cinnamon sticks

Crustaforum has stickies on use and dosing


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## onefishtwofish (Apr 21, 2010)

did they do a lot of mosquito spraying in your area this year? just curious. i have an oak and maple tree in my yard here in mission. i could collect some and get them as far as claudias.

i wonder if to sterilize or clean instead of boiling if microwaving would be an alternative. i do that to sponges.......wet them and nuke for 1 minute


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## Pamela (Apr 21, 2010)

Ursus sapien said:


> I love this question, in part because so many people think you have buy leaves only of a certain type, from overseas. In reality any dead autumn hardwood leaf will do.
> 
> >leaves need to be autumn leaves, ie with the chlorophyll reabsorbed by the tree. Otherwise the leaves just decompose, the way a leaf of Romain lettuce would. This fall is a poor leaf crop as most hardwood leaves have way too much chlorophyll left in them. It's the price of a colourful fall.
> >they must be "cide" free -herbicide, fungicide, pesticide - and not be treated with any other agricultural chemicals;
> ...


Thank you so much for all the useful information, Storm! I was hoping that you would say something on this subject because I recall you mentioning leaves & cinnamon sticks in another thread  So you don't even bother with boiling or baking yours then... interesting. I will find out about pesticides in Burnaby & I think I'll see if there are any Oak trees up on Burnaby Mountain.


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## Pamela (Apr 21, 2010)

onefishtwofish said:


> did they do a lot of mosquito spraying in your area this year? just curious. i have an oak and maple tree in my yard here in mission. i could collect some and get them as far as claudias.
> 
> i wonder if to sterilize or clean instead of boiling if microwaving would be an alternative. i do that to sponges.......wet them and nuke for 1 minute


I'm not sure if they did any mosquito spraying, I'll have to find out, thanks for mentioning it  I don't know about microwaving them, it should work though.


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## christhefish (Nov 8, 2010)

lots of good info
the only thing i have to add is that if you want tannins look for some alder cones they do a good job at staining the water


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## Jaguar (Oct 19, 2011)

Oak leaves work very well - they last very long in the water before starting to deteriorate. Maple leaves, not so much. I collected some oak leaves from a park, boiled them for a few minutes, and they've been in my tank for over 2 weeks now with no sign of breaking down. They leach quite a bit of tannins but I like the look =)


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

christhefish said:


> lots of good info
> the only thing i have to add is that if you want tannins look for some alder cones they do a good job at staining the water


thank you! I always forget about alder cones.

fyi, hardwood leaves and wood will lower the pH


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

Pamela said:


> Thank you so much for all the useful information, Storm! I was hoping that you would say something on this subject because I recall you mentioning leaves & cinnamon sticks in another thread  So you don't even bother with boiling or baking yours then... interesting. I will find out about pesticides in Burnaby & I think I'll see if there are any Oak trees up on Burnaby Mountain.


You're very welcome I came back to fish-keeping via the shrimp hobby, and my teachers of choice followed naturalistic methods.

I do wash the leaves if I don't use them right away, in part because it allows me to then dry them flat for compact storage.

A big part of what make leaves so valuable are the microorganisms, bacteria and algae they grow, known collectively as aufwuchs (biofilm plus). This is useful for 'aging' new tanks and is a prime food for newly hatched fish. It's what the inverts and adult fish are feeding on. Sterilizing the leaves defeats the point.

Sterilizing also reduces the 'life span' of the leaf.


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

Excellent thread! Thanks everyone for contributing. I'm also a regular user of almond leaves and bark, but this makes me think about going local...


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

awesome read, i will definately do some collecting as i live next to the woods  Maybe now i will get some breeding from my shrimp that never seemed to work for me


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Another benefit of oak leaves...oak leaves leave less of a mess . Less floaties.


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Great read for sure! Thanks for starting this thread! Lots of great info !


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## King-eL (Apr 21, 2010)

Well I'm a snakehead keeper and having leaf litter on the bottom is good for them as they love ph at 5-6. I been placing dried up leaves that I gathered during fall and must be very dried. Never did have problems with oak or maple, except that they make the tank really tan. The plan was to place almond leaves but they are not for free. So I just pick a bucket of oak and maple outside. I let them super dry close to the furnace as picking them outside it wet and sometimes with mud or wet dirt. Once they are super dried it's easier to get the dirt off or rinse them. I never tried boiling them I just place them directly to the tank. Some will float but over time they sink down. Snakeheads love them as a tan water, low ph, lots of shades and hiding spots is what they prefer. Also they like breeding on the leaf litter.


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## gklaw (May 31, 2010)

Storm ! Amazing wealth of knowledge. I think collecting autumn leaves will benefit ME more than my fish :bigsmile: Must be very therapeutic


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

Another BCA member, Scholtz, collected oak leaves locally. He used them in his shrimp tanks, where they made a nice mulm. He gave me some and I used them in my tanks, too, until I ran out of them. I meant to collect some this fall but I forgot to before the rains fell. 

I have not tried maple leaves.


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

Morainy said:


> Another BCA member, Scholtz, collected oak leaves locally. He used them in his shrimp tanks, where they made a nice mulm. He gave me some and I used them in my tanks, too, until I ran out of them. I meant to collect some this fall but I forgot to before the rains fell.
> 
> I have not tried maple leaves.


maple leaves break down quickly, so are more work to keep up.

this is not a good year for leaf collection - the leaves aren't fully 'dead'. I've got some stashed from last year, thankfully.


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

gklaw said:


> Storm ! Amazing wealth of knowledge. I think collecting autumn leaves will benefit ME more than my fish :bigsmile: Must be very therapeutic


don't be too impressed - what I don't know would fill libraries lol Leave me in charge of your salt water the next time you go on holidays and all you'll come home to is a tank full of dead!


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Here's a home based study done on alder cones for lowering pH.
Source: Alder cones - How alder cones affect pH and color in aquarium water


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

found this info on Crustaforum: green-picked walnut leaves have anti fungal/antibacterial properties similar to Indian Almond.


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## davefrombc (Apr 21, 2010)

Walnut leaves are something I have an overabundance of .. also access to some oak leaves from a neighbours , and hazelnut leaves from bushes here.


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## Pamela (Apr 21, 2010)

I thought that I would post a follow up to my original post here. I researched online about the use of herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides in Burnaby. Burnaby is 'cide' free except for golf courses, nurseries, and the rose gardens at SFU.

I ended up collecting some Maple leaves because there are thousands of Maple trees in the woods near my house but not one Oak tree. I soaked the leaves in a bucket of water for 4 days and gave them a good rinse before putting them into my tanks.

I also put one Indian Almond leaf into each tank at the same time I added the Maple leaves. Surprisingly the Maple leaves actually seem to be holding up better (not deteriorating) than the Indian Almond leaves.

I'd say that the fish are happy with the leaves in their tank. One of my pairs of wild type bettas has had 2 batches of fry since the leaves were put in their tank & my other pair of wild bettas had one batch of fry. All of the fish and fry seem to like being able to hide under the leaves.

I don't have any photos of my tanks with the leaves, but I really like how they look. It looks very natural. The water is a little yellow, but it doesn't bother me.


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## Ursus sapien (Apr 21, 2010)

good to hear the maple leaves are holding up. Could it have something to do with species of maple(?). I tried some coloured maple leaves this year and they are also holding up well. Old bears can learn new tricks


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## Luke78 (Apr 24, 2010)

Glad to hear about your success with these leaves.Its interesting how a fish's behaviour can change with these introduced to their environment.My cories did and still do use(almond/oak leaves) them for cover,lay their eggs on them(seems to me the eggs attach to them well and dont fall off),they feed off them including my plecos and the look and feel of it makes your aquarium more natural.Only dislike i have is when they got shredded up, bits of pieces float everywhere.Kept mine in for more than a week,seems some lasted(bigger pieces) while others didnt.


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Thought this is a worthy thread to bump... as it becoming the right time of year to collect plenty of leaves lol :bigsmile:


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## Pamela (Apr 21, 2010)

Bumping up this old thread in case anybody might want to collect leaves and cones for their tanks this fall.


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## Atom (Apr 21, 2010)

I was just thinking of doing this recently. I got almond leaves from eBay, but would like to experiment with local leaves too. Thanks for the bump Pamela! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## mikebike (Sep 8, 2010)

I'm about to cut back my banana trees soon.
I have free bannana leave availible in S Surry.

My plecos and other fish in my tanks love it.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Great thread Pamela. Glad you bumped it up. I've been using Mulberry leaves for years, as shrimp food, but good to know the other types of leaves and other uses for adding autumn leaves to fw tanks.


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