Apistogramma viejita from LFS?

[_bsafarijoe]

I guess it’s more specific than “biotope” but at any rate it looks good!

If you are ever interested, https://bettabotanicals.com/ is amazing. I'm not affiliated with them or their sales but I love to plug Ben when I can! I love his stuff.

 

[Ben Rhau]

Cool, I’ve definitely started reading more about botanical methods. I definitely use a lot of botanicals (mostly pick-your-own) but a lot of ideas and techniques I hadn’t considered before.

 

[_bsafarijoe]

Cool, I’ve definitely started reading more about botanical methods. I definitely use a lot of botanicals (mostly pick-your-own) but a lot of ideas and techniques I hadn’t considered before.

Check out his stuff and get yourself some guava leaves! I love them because they hold up and don't deteriorate!

 

[Ben Rhau]

Guava grows locally here, so I'll try it. You do want the leaves to deteriorate. The more long-lasting ones I've used are magnolia. They're useful structurally, but don't tend to add as much tannin to my water. At least not very quickly.

 

[_bsafarijoe]

Guava grows locally here, so I'll try it. You do want the leaves to deteriorate. The more long-lasting ones I've used are magnolia. They're useful structurally, but don't tend to add as much tannin to my water. At least not very quickly.

You definitely do want it to deteriorate, but slowly, if it's too fast it will cause a bloom. I do a lot of these setups and I find that if you pair faster decomposing materials (live oak, dregea pods, or soft stems) with hard materials (suraleca pods, alder cones and twigs, and guava leaves) it allows for a better ecosystem.

 

[_bsafarijoe]

Guava grows locally here, so I'll try it. You do want the leaves to deteriorate. The more long-lasting ones I've used are magnolia. They're useful structurally, but don't tend to add as much tannin to my water. At least not very quickly.

Best for tanins are alder. that and oak

 

[MacZ]

As all of them are natural products the amounts of humic substances can vary widely. In comparison oak usually doesn't do much, while alder cones are baseline great for the tint.
Just for colour itself I've circled back to using rooibos tea.

 

[_bsafarijoe]

As all of them are natural products the amounts of humic substances can vary widely. In comparison oak usually doesn't do much, while alder cones are baseline great for the tint.
Just for colour itself I've circled back to using rooibos tea.

Trusty me when I say, oak quickly turns any tank into blackwater.

 

[MacZ]

I have my own share of experience, and the colour alone is not what makes blackwater blackwater. I have had a lot of self-collected oak leaves in my tank, not much colour from most species of Quercus. But they are excellent for leaf litter beds.

 

[_bsafarijoe]

I have my own share of experience, and the colour alone is not what makes blackwater blackwater. I have had a lot of self-collected oak leaves in my tank, not much colour from most species of Quercus. But they are excellent for leaf litter beds.

You do you man, I'm just saying, species like Canadian red oak and scrub oak have humic acids for days.

 

[MacZ]

Well, I'm several thousand kilometers away, I'll have to do with European trees.

 

[_bsafarijoe]

Well, I'm several thousand kilometers away, I'll have to do with European trees.

Oh no! Sorry! Didn’t even look at your location!

 

[MacZ]

Not a problem. This forum is spread over pretty much all timezones and both hemispheres.

 

[Aquaticloch]

You do you man, I'm just saying, species like Canadian red oak and scrub oak have humic acids for days.

I have used Canadian red oak and I find them to have some humic acids and tannic acids, but i usually just use them for structure and aldercones for adding blackwater acids. I find red alder cones (Alnus rubra) are easier to come by here and produce very nice tannis after boiling for 30 minutes. I usually drop in a few oak leaves while boiling the cones too, I don't know if this majorly contributes to the overall humic acid and tannic acid concentration considerably though.

 

[MacZ]

Most importantly the actual acids are not giving colour to the water. A lot are only build up while the stuff decomposes.