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Locally sourced leaf litter

zozo said:
But since in your case it's about dried stuff and the dry hard nut shells only.. Relative to the amount vs volume you like to use it can't leach indefinitely and a good advice would be, always pre soak it for a longer periode, refresh the water regularly during this soaking process and filter the container with the soaking shells after several water refreshings for a while with active carbon before you use it in the aqaurium. After a few weeks it will be flushed enough not to leach to much into the water column anymore. And keep up with the aqauriums regular water changes..
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It'll be some time before I can set up this aquarium, so I can soak this stuff for months (and use the water to water the plants on my balcony) before drying it and storing it for future use in my aquarium. In any case I'm not planning to go for quantity, just variety, so there won't be a large layer of stuff at any one time in the tank.

zozo said:
This advice is also givin when you purchase Tanin Aquatics decorative fruit pods etc. from their webshop. WIth this approach you're beter safe than sorry and probably can use quite a lot as long as it is hard enough not to rot away in a few weeks.
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Yes, I thought about that, but at 220cm by 60cm it's going to be a lot of surface, so I wanted to use something cheaper.
 
tam said:
Crushed walnut shells are used as pet bedding so probably don't contain anything too toxic. I found a website selling turkish hazel husks for shrimp: https://www.shrimps.se/en/nature/210-turkish-hasel-husk.html it's going to be one of those things you'd have to try though I don't think there is a definitive answer available. Let us know how you get on.
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I guess I can do the long soak described above, and then try small quantities. Won't be needing much, because as mentioned above, I'm aiming for variety, not for bulk. Also, in about 800 litres it should dilute quite well, and the forest of emersed plants on the back edge of the tank should be quite a buffer.
 
Zante said:
Adding a couple of questions:

Walnut shells? Hazelnut shells? Almond, pecan and any other nut shell?

I'd like it to look like the bottom of a slow flowing river, and it won't have any plants other than one or two amazon swords, so twigs, leaves and various shells will be the only real decoration apart from one large log.
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Acorn cups and beech cases work well.
 
Zante said:
, so I wanted to use something cheaper.
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Scavange webshops or local shops in Dry flower arrangement materials.. They have the same stuff a lot cheaper. Only buy the natural dried products (non painted and non scented). Tanin aqautics probably jumped on the same suppliers with a different idea than dry flower hobby hush about it and cash on it big time. No pun attented i like them, but since it's from the states and no go with the high shipping costs. I searched and stumbled uppon other suppliers like bellow.. 🙂
https://www.theessentialscompany.co.uk/dried-natural/pods-seeds/
 
zozo said:
Regarding some Dutch gardening sites, they should be, but more like in a Tub than a pot.. This cross breed M. grandiflora X M. salicifolia can be pruned pretty heavily they say. 🙂
https://www.tuinkrant.com/artikel/mooiste-lente-zomerbloeiende-magnolias-jarenlang-bloeiplezier

Anyway they can be bought in a 110 litre pot.. Seemingly till that size it shouldn't be all to problematic.
Magnolia-grandiflora-Praecox_110L_479.jpg

https://www.bigplantnursery.co.uk/plants/magnolia-grandiflora-praecox_783.html
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That you Marcel...?
 
That you Marcel...?
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You mean the guy in the picture?.. No that's not me, that's probably the owner of bigplantsnursery.co.uk..
Till now i don't believe there is a picture of me personaly roaming the net.. Not that i know of.. 🙂 Maybe deep down in the net digging google cache from my flying days via the old fly club website. But that should be at least 15 years ago.
 
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Autumn is upon us and much in the garden is turning, so I'm reviving this old thread with some new questions if the following plants are safe for use:
  • Fern leaves?
  • Dogwood leaves?
  • lilac leaves? And branches for that matter (large lilac try in the garden here)
  • Blackberry/raspberry leaves?
  • Grape leaf?
  • Lupine leaf?
  • mountain ash leaf?


Most of the above I ask because of the varying leaf forms that could be cool to use.

From what I gathered from here and some google, the following are already declared safe for use:
  • beech
  • oak* will tan water slightly
  • magnolia
  • Cherry (just falls apart quickly)
  • walnut
  • Chestnut
  • acer/maple (falls apart quickly)
  • pear
  • apple
  • hawthorne

Unsafe:
  • anything from pinetrees?
  • anything from conifers?
  • Common ivy (hedera helix) - slightly toxic

Maybe we can make a sticky thread somewhere with safe for use/unsafe for use plant parts listing and possible side effects such as tanning water etc?
 
Hi all,
Wolf6 said:
  • Fern leaves?
  • Dogwood leaves?
  • lilac leaves? And branches for that matter (large lilac try in the garden here)
  • Blackberry/raspberry leaves?
  • Grape leaf?
  • Lupine leaf?
  • mountain ash leaf?
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Out of those probably just the Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia), and I'd guess they would decay fairly rapidly.
Wolf6 said:
  • anything from pinetrees?
  • anything from conifers?
  • Common ivy (hedera helix) - slightly toxic
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I'd keep away from those. I've used long dead <"Ivy (Hedera helix)">, <"Yew (Taxus baccata)"> and <"Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)"> wood, but I wouldn't go near the leaves, or any wood that had been recently green.
Wolf6 said:
Maybe we can make a sticky thread somewhere with safe for use/unsafe for use plant parts listing and possible side effects such as tanning water etc?
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I think it is quite tricky, most wood and leaves that are rot resistant are rot resistant because they contain toxic compounds and I would be reluctant to describe something as unequivocally "safe".

cheers Darrel
 
Wolf6 said:
  • Fern leaves?
  • Dogwood leaves?
  • lilac leaves? And branches for that matter (large lilac try in the garden here)
  • Blackberry/raspberry leaves?
  • Grape leaf?
  • Lupine leaf?
  • mountain ash leaf?
Click to expand...
Out of those I have tried grape and mountain ash. The grape leaves deteriorated very quickly if I remember right, so might be good for creating lots of detritus fast, but I would avoid larger quantities. Mountain ash worked pretty well, although the leaflets tends to fall of. I would be very careful with lupine, not only do they contain unpleasant alkaloids, they are also legumes so even dead leaves might contain a lot of nitrogen (just like alder trees legumes shed their leaves without retracting the chlorophyll).

As for conifers, we have plenty of dammed lakes around here with old coniferous trees on the bottom, so I have experimented with scots pine and spruce. Spruce is way to soft to last for any length of time underwater, but pine that have been waterlogged for some years works pretty well and is what I use in my aquariums.
 
I remember an interview I heard with Dr C. Steinberg from the Berlin university about their study on Dissolved Humic Substances / Stress Ecology and the positive effects on freshwater lifeforms. And he said that they also tested dried Pine Needles and these are absolutely safe to use if there is nothing else you can find. I guess it's pinewood or any other softwood containing lots of resin that should be avoided.

If you happen to understand the German language it's this podcast/interview. Listen at 7m 5s for "Selbst Nadelstreu das wirkt positive DE = Even Pine Litter it works positive Eng". 🙂
 
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I recently used some fern leaves I collected from our garden last autumn. They work well, they've last a month so far and still look really nice and have no unhappy inhabitants (with snails, shrimp & fish). I'm a big fan of collecting interesting leaves and giving them a go, currently have a load of palm leaves in the shed which I love but are a bit large 😛 Also I quite like the dried bamboo leaves, which are smaller and paler than most, and hairy acorn cups from the turkey oak.

My current favourites are magnolia grandiflora leaves which have a lovely structure + colour and take a few months for the otos to really destroy them, and dried green walnut leaves which the otos devour within day or two leaving interesting skeleton leaves. They're really just food, but it looks much nicer and more natural than a bit of courgette on a stick.
 
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Hornbeam is pretty tough and definitely safe. I've used sweet chestnut which look great but not for long unfortunately. I've got a mulberry as well which is safe.

Like Rosie mentions magnolia grandiflora is a great leaf but they tend to be pretty big so don't always fit in nano tanks.

Don't forget it's not just leaves. We all know alder cones are great but I've used hazelnut husks (helpfully prepared by the mice that live near the tree), beech husks, the odd pistachio nut shell, plus others you'd see in a shelled Christmas nut collection, acorn cups plus many more. They might not all look biotope specific but you can get a nice mix.
 
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