Carbon and Indian Almond Leaves?

[Lucky7777]

I currently use Indian almond leaves in my 50 gallon for my leaf bed. My fish love the leaf bed but I'm not sure if I still like the black water look.

My question is when adding carbon to the filter ( which I don't normally have in there) will it only removes the tannins or will it also remove the anti fungal/antibacterial properties that the leaves release. Will they still keep pH lower?

I like it lighter but don't want to remove the bed of leaves since the cory's and dwarves seem to love them so much.

 

[Mike Wise]

Good quality activated carbon will remove most organics, including the ones you want to keep. I stopped using carbon as a chemical filter decades ago. The cost doesn't justify the results. Good tank maintenance (proper feeding and regular water changes) are much less expensive and more effective.

 

[Lucky7777]

Good quality activated carbon will remove most organics, including the ones you want to keep. I stopped using carbon as a chemical filter decades ago. The cost doesn't justify the results. Good tank maintenance (proper feeding and regular water changes) are much less expensive and more effective.

I understand, I only use carbon if I ever needed to remove meds from the water. I was only going to use it to remove tannins if it left everything else behind, but since my fish love the leaves so much I decided to tale the carbon out earlier to day and throw a few more leaves in. Back to the black water

 

[Jacco]

There are other options, when you don't like black water. Teak leaves make the water a little yellow instead of brown ([eople claim it has a simalar effect as almond leaves). And also "white" peat (peat moss) leaves less color than the older brown peat.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

but since my fish love the leaves so much I decided to tale the carbon out earlier to day and throw a few more leaves in. Back to the black water

I think that is the answer, I don't think you can remove all the colour and still benefit from the humic compounds. I also think that the grazing surfaces provided by dead leaves definitely aid fry survival.

We had a bit of a discussion on humic compounds a while ago in this thread, it is well worth a read: <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/ok.12048/>.

cheers Darrel