# Creating Blackwater



## OllieNZ (6 Jan 2010)

Hi all
Ive been researching ways of creating blackwater and was wondering if there is a best/prefered way?
Im looking for something I can stick in my external filter. Would I need to use an aquarium product like sera peat or could I get away with using generic peat moss?

Thanks

Ollie


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## Ed Seeley (6 Jan 2010)

You really need very low TDS water to start with.  When I've made it in the past I've just put ordinary garden centre peat (Pure peat, not compost) in my filter in a very fine media bag or the end of a pair of tights.  A guy I know who used it for lots of killifish used a large water and added the peat and water and left it to soak.  Then when he did water changes he just topped the barrel back up and then left it to mature again.


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## OllieNZ (7 Jan 2010)

Thanks for the info Ed. How often were you changing the peat in your filter? 

Thanks

Ollie


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## dw1305 (7 Jan 2010)

Hi all,
Ed is right it will only soften water with low levels of buffering. I've used a pillow case of peat in the water butt to soften and tint the water, you only need to change it every 6 months or so, when the water is no longer tannin stained.
cheers Darrel


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## roadmaster (7 Jan 2010)

Have used oak leaves about one or two per ten gallons in Discus/Ram tank and replaced them evry couple months. created tannin stained water and softened the water a bit. Sterbai corys very much enjoyed the leaf litter. kept additional leaves inside damp newspaper and inside freezer bag for replacements.


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## Ed Seeley (7 Jan 2010)

OllieNZ said:
			
		

> Thanks for the info Ed. How often were you changing the peat in your filter?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Ollie



As a big bale of peat is so cheap I changed it whenever I cleaned the filter out.  Cost next to nothing and the old peat just went on the garden so nicely recycled!  I guess it was roughly every 2-4 weeks.


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## dw1305 (8 Jan 2010)

Hi all,
Oak leaves/alder cones are good (and free in the UK). Otherwise Indian Almond leaves work (_Terminalia catappa_), and if you are in NZ? Southern Beech _Nothofagus_ leaves or Loquat (_Eriobotrya japonica_) would do.

Horticultural Camellia leaves also work, and quite a few of the posters from SE Asia use ordinary drinking tea (and the leaves come already in a handy bag) for their genuine tea stained water.

cheers Darrel


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## OllieNZ (8 Jan 2010)

I moved to England a year ago, my wife imported me from NZ  


> Horticultural Camellia leaves also work, and quite a few of the posters from SE Asia use ordinary drinking tea (and the leaves come already in a handy bag) for their genuine tea stained water


Would tea have the same effect on the water chemistry as peat?

Thanks

Ollie


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## dw1305 (8 Jan 2010)

Hi all,
Ollie I've never tried tea leaves, but they are full of tannins and I would suspect that they would have some of the same properties, however because of the tannins and saponins in large amounts it would be toxic. 

Indian Almond leaves are good and I use/have used sphagnum peat, alder cones and oak leaves because they are easy to get, in fact for the oak leaves and alder cones I can walk outside and pick up a handful of either and be back within a 5 minutes, and a bale of peat is cheap and lasts for ever.

TA aquaculture sell both Indian almond leaves and Alder cones and have some blurb about them.
http://www.ta-aquaculture.co.uk/Leaves.htm

cheers Darrel


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## OllieNZ (8 Jan 2010)

> the tannins and saponins in large amounts it would be toxic


Very interesting (done a little bit of research) and its something Ive never even considered. 
Large amounts of tannins also appear to chelate iron and make it bio-unavailable.
Humic acid appears to do the opposite by chelating +Ions and making them bioavalible
So perhaps peat will be a better option than tea.   
Is there a chart out there that shows or anyway of measuring tannic vs humic acid to work out the 'best' media to use.

Thanks for the help everyone   

Thanks

Ollie


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## OllieNZ (12 Jan 2010)

Had the decision of what to use taken out of my hands for the moment. The wife "surprised"  me by buying some sera super peat I left on the ebay watch list while looking out for things to use, so I will be trying that out.

Any thoughts on the tannic vs humic acid idea?


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## dw1305 (13 Jan 2010)

Hi all,
The suggestion would be that humic and fulvic acids (from sphagnum peats) are really what you are aiming for rather than actual tannins. The Sera peat is fine, it is just a very expensive option. I'll have to find it, but there is quite a lot of research on the effects of _Terminalia catappa_ (Indian Almond), which does contain a lot of tannins and this is largely positive.
<http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=terminalia+catappa&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2001&as_sdtp=on>.

cheers Darrel


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## OllieNZ (14 Jan 2010)

Hi All
Thanks for the link Darrel I've managed to find this regarding tannins 
http://vet.kku.ac.th/journal/pdf/jv181/4.pdf
It would appear if im interpreting the results correctly that lethal levels to fish start around 5 mg/ml (5000ppm) with naturally blackwater fish being slightly more tolerant.  
It appears concentrations up to 2mg/ml (2000ppm) affected the target bacteria. 
This suggests to me that tannin concentrations greater than 2mg/ml would only provide a slight benefit compared to their potential risk to fish health.
Please feel free to correct/add to this

Thanks

Ollie


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## dw1305 (15 Jan 2010)

Hi all,
Yes I think you are right. They would be difficult to measure, but when I've used them or Alder cones I've gone for a "weak tea" tint. I think "Melafix" probably works in this way. This works out at about 3 Alder cones or 1 Indian Almond leaf to about 50 litres of water.
cheers Darrel


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## a1Matt (19 Feb 2010)

I am trying to create a habitat closer to blackwater in my tank, and through the use of peat and frequent small RO water changes am slowly (so as not to shock the fish) lowering all the parameters involved, namely TDS, PH, GH and KH.

The ph is dropping very slowly though and I am wondering whether I am not adding enough peat, or if my water has 'too much' buffering capability.

I understand that the water needs to have a low KH in order for peat to do its ph lowering magic.
Does the same apply to GH? I have been doing some reading and have not been able to find a clear answer to this.
I am slowly lowering my GH anyway, but wondered if I am wasting peat (and time and effort!) by using it while my GH is still quite high.

My parameters are as follows, with original parameters before using RO+peat in brackets:

8GH (was 13)
1KH (was 4)
ph7.3 (was 8 )
TDS 250 (was 700)

I've also added a lot of beech leaves, these do not seem to have much effect on the water parameters but look fantastic  
This is all in preparation for keeping chocolate gouramis by the way.


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## Ed Seeley (19 Feb 2010)

GH doesn't effect the pH directly but it will add to the TDS.  I've run tanks at much lower TDS than that for soft water fish so I'd up the amount of RO water.  In fact I run all my tanks on pure RO and just add a bit of remineralising salts for the plants.

Just keep going as you are but up the levels of RO water.  Whatever you do though if there are fish in the tank do it slowly and steadily and you won't have any problems IME.


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## a1Matt (19 Feb 2010)

Thanks Ed.   
It is good to know the GH does not have a direct effect, I can up the amount of peat I am using (little by little) with confidence now.

All my WC are with pure RO now, which I drip in with airline tubing (at a rate of 1l per hour).  I just started this 2 weeks ago which is why a lot of my parameters are still high. 

I will use DIY salts to keep GH and KH at 1.
I am curious to see how low I will be able to get my TDS to.
I think my next obstacle will be weaning myself off the dry ferts, as that is a sure fire way to keep the TDS up.

Thanks again, tinkering with water is new to me, it is very reassuring to have your experience to guide me


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## Ed Seeley (19 Feb 2010)

No worries.  Just by way of letting you know a lot of my knowledge about TDS comes from apistos and koi.  A lot of koi breeders are lowering the hardness of their water to match that of the mudponds in Japan.  Those ponds with lots of large (and very expensive koi in) have a TDS of 30ppm!  Japanese breeders say if the TDS is much over 80ppm that you should lower it so you have still got a long way to go!

Dry ferts are killers if trying to drop the TDS, but they won't affect the effect of the peat too much so don't worry about them IMO.  I'm not so sure about their effect on some fish's breeding though and would cut them down maybe for the chocolates.  It can't hurt as the low pH is probably going to make growing plants trickier anyway!  

Also with you water changes you don't need to be too careful with them; just do them like normal but maybe reduce the size at first.  And as you get the TDS down further each change will have less of an effect anyway as the difference between the new and old water reduces.  If you don't mind dripping it in though it won't hurt - just takes a lot of time!


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## hartle (13 Mar 2010)

Does anyone have an opinion on simply placing aldercones into the (internal - juwel rekord) filter to start creating more of a blackwater look and feel to a tank? Leaving them in until each weekly water change etc. Or would almond leaf teabags be better?

I'm currently using an aldercone 'tea' as an additive to my weekly water changes (200ml into a 70L aquarium). The cories and tetra seem happy with it, but I'd like to get darker/stained water. Preferably without putting leaves on the aquarium floor. I really like the look of this tank by George: http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=9512

Is this recommended or will it have too much impact on water chemistry?
My current chemistry stands at: pH 7.5, GH 9, KH 5


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## Ajm200 (13 Mar 2010)

I've used the cappatta  almond leaves sold by rare aquatics. 1/2 a leaf in my 60l tank turned the water very brown.  Got them as I had a skinny otto who took a while to discover algae tabs and ottos are supposed to love them.


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## dw1305 (15 Mar 2010)

Hi all,


> 1/2 a leaf in my 60l tank turned the water very brown


 & 





> Is this recommended or will it have too much impact on water chemistry? My current chemistry stands at: pH 7.5, GH 9, KH 5.


 More alder cones, ordinary cork or oak bark will all stain the water, although the _Terminalia cattapa _leaves suggested are probably the easiest. They won't have much effect on the pH, your water still has a lot of buffering left.
cheers Darrel


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## gzylo (25 Mar 2010)

or you can get peat extract if you give me your adress and pay for postage I will send you few bottles I have like 2 litres of it from Poland.

regards 
gzylo


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## a1Matt (20 Apr 2010)

I want to try out some almond leaves and am wondering how many to buy.
So the question is...  When placed in the filter, how long do you guys reckon these leaves will have an effect for?
Couple of weeks then swap them out? 
(my gh and kh are both at 0 now so there is no buffering)

TA aqauaculture states that:
"Loose Leaves
These are approx 7" minimum size.
One leaf will treat up to 10 gallons"

(I have been steadily working on my blackwater since posting a couple of months back mainly using a combination of alder cones and peat. These work, but I just want to try out the leaves as well to see how they compare.)


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## dw1305 (21 Apr 2010)

Hi all, 





> Couple of weeks then swap them out?


 I think this is what people a lot of people do, but a lot of Apistogramma keepers just leave them in the tank until they break down into bits or skeletonize. I think most of the tannins and humic organic compounds will leach out in the first couple of weeks. I haven't used them for a while, but from what I remember they break down more quickly than Oak leaves.
cheers Darrel


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## a1Matt (21 Apr 2010)

Thanks Darrel   

Oak leaves are on my list to try as well.  (The area where my house is built used to be an oak forest, and there are still a lot of oak trees dotted around, so I'd be silly not to try the leaves out!)


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## dw1305 (21 Apr 2010)

*Re: Creating Blackwater - Oak leaves*

Hi all, 





> Oak leaves are on my list to try as well


Although it sounds a strange time of year to suggest collecting dead leaves a lot of the smaller deciduous oaks and Beech hedges will be shedding the dead leaves (that they've held all winter) as their new leaves expand, and evergreen oaks will also shed their leaves now. Holm Oak (_Quercus ilex_) isn't very exciting, and Cork Oak (_Quercus suber_) is only slightly better, but the leaves of Cork Oak's hybrid with Turkey Oak (_Quercus cerris_), the "Lucombe Oak" _Quercus Ã— hispanica_, are really striking. 

cheers Darrel


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## a1Matt (21 Apr 2010)

All the oak leaves I spotted when out collecting last week were pretty scrappy (had been on the ground since the Autumn by the looks of things). I had no idea that different oaks differed so much.  Now I know I expect I will start spotting them.

I had never noticed an alder tree in my life before, now I have an eye for them I have spotted quite a few  
I got a small bags worth of beech leaves last week as well.  Like you say it is a good time of year to collect these


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## PM (24 Feb 2013)

Sorry posted in wrong thread!


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## Nathaniel Whiteside (24 Feb 2013)

Ive got a few Terminalia Catappa leaves :


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