Homemade mulm

[rasmusW]

Hi all!

I’m thinking of mixing some mulm/leaflitter for my tanks. I plan to use whatever type of leafs i got on storage, beech bark, coconut fibers, alder cones, maybe some small twigs and ash tree bark..
All but the ash tree bark, is what i normally have in my toolbelt, so i just wanted to hear if it’s tank safe and if you have any experience with it?

-r

 

[MacZ]

All but the ash tree bark, is what i normally have in my toolbelt, so i just wanted to hear if it’s tank safe and if you have any experience with it?

My experience with bark of european trees is that it's either floating and if not tending to have a lot of leftover sap which causes bacteria blooms. So you might want to boil it before use. Normally I don't recommend boiling everything to death, but in this case I'll make an exception.

Catappa bark is great though, shame I only got a small package once, the pieces are still in my tank for over two years now. But it's too expensive and far from sustainable.

 

[rasmusW]

Thanks Mac! Ye, the bark if not all of it would get a 5-10 min boil.
I just thought Ash would be fun because i could beat it up and hopefully get some nice stands of bark. Ash is a lot more “stringy” (science term….), than beech bark.

-r