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How to mimic deep leaf litter?

duane stuermer

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5 Year Member
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21
Location
Milwaukee WI
Good tip about the magnolia leaves, my tree just dropped, so I'm soaking a 5 gal bucket full, to add to a wild type betta tank.
The water has turned quite dark after just a couple days.
 

duane stuermer

New Member
5 Year Member
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21
Location
Milwaukee WI
Might be time to change the water on the magnolia leaves.
141.jpg
 

duane stuermer

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5 Year Member
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21
Location
Milwaukee WI
Decided today after 2 weeks of soaking, was a good day to toss some magnolia leaves into the tank I've been preparing for wild bettas. Putting them on the dark side of the tank.
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061-1.jpg

059-1.jpg
 

dw1305

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5 Year Member
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2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all.
They look really good, it will be interesting to see how long they remain intact for. Do you have problems with the leaf fragments ending up in the gravel? I tend to leave mine until I have a bit if a mulm layer and then have a very occasional syphon, but I use sand so the leaf fragments are always on top of the substrate.

cheers Darrel
 

duane stuermer

New Member
5 Year Member
Messages
21
Location
Milwaukee WI
For me, the maple leaves break down fairly quickly, especially with the cichlids chewing on them. It will be interesting to see how the magnolia leaves hold up.
 

aquaticclarity

Moderator
Staff member
5 Year Member
Messages
1,809
Location
Richfield, WI
Night and day differrnce between white and red oak leaves.

I like the smaller leaf size of the white oak leaves I get but they only last a few weeks or so. The red oak leaves on the other hand are holding up in most of the tanks going on 3+ months now! And as a bonus the red oak leaves turn an incredible deep rich purple red and have a really attractive shape. The down side is there neatly hand size size.
 

dw1305

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5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
The red oak leaves on the other hand are holding up in most of the tanks going on 3+ months now! And as a bonus the red oak leaves turn an incredible deep rich purple red and have a really attractive shape
I like Quercus rubra and Q. coccinea leaves as well, they were planted a bit in the UK for Forestry, but they didn't do very well and they like acid soils, so there aren't many trees near us (it is all limestone here). I always go and get my Oak (Q. robur) and Beech (Fagus sylvatica) leaves from a wood on the acid "green sand" about 10 miles away, but I don't know if it really makes a difference.

cheers Darrel
 

duane stuermer

New Member
5 Year Member
Messages
21
Location
Milwaukee WI
002.jpg

At this point most of the magnolia leaves have skeletonized. whether this be to snails, or normal decomposition, not sure.
There has not been a large detritus buildup.
Below is when they were first dropped in.
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Now
051.jpg
 

Heartnet

New Member
5 Year Member
Messages
8
In the hopes of creating as close to a leaf litter biotope as I could after watching this biotope video, I ordered indian almond leaves in bulk.

Here's how it looks so far. I'll be adding more leaves as the tannins fade from the WC's.

DSC_0072_zps97157de7.jpg


The back wall is an entire sheet of 2" poret foam. The tank uses hamburg matten filtration.
 

Jonathan Aquair

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
44
I had this very question a little while ago when buying some A. Bitaeniata from Ted Judy. So I went and bught ~250+ Indian almod leaves. Turned out pretty well [excluding pesky snails.....this is why we can't have nice things...]

Day one (waiting for leaves to fall)

couple weeks into it

Female w/fry emerging

After a few months w/o leaf replenishing
 

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