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Locally sourced leaf litter

Z

Zante

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2017
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92
Location
Florence, Italy
Not exactly aquatic plants, but I thought I'd ask here as it seems the most appropriate.

I have available, locally that I know are clean, linden, walnut, oak, magnolia, sweet chestnut, cherry.
Any of these good to use as leaf litter?
 
Yes. Oak is especially good as it breaks down really slow.

Make sure there areno pesticides on the leaves .
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,<"Magnolia is good">, the evergreen leaves (Magnolia grandiflora) last really well, and the deciduous leaves (M. x soulangeana etc.) skeletonize.

cheers Darrel
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Interesting, I've got a grandiflora but never considered it.

@Zante I've used oak, walnut, cherry and sweet chestnut before. Beech is great and so are fruits.
 
Thank you everyone, I'm planning a rather large tank and doing it with just catappa would have looked unrealistic (and expensive!). With this selection of botanicals it'll look a lot better.

As for pesticides, I'd be picking them from the woods owned by a former neighbour who used to trade in wood.
He has over 300 hectares of woodland and the only work he ever did on it was clearing and cutting, no spraying of any kind.
 
Has to be (preferably naturally) dried for leaf litter. For shrimp food, either is fine but some are better raw say for example Mulberry.
 
rebel said:
Has to be (preferably naturally) dried for leaf litter. For shrimp food, either is fine but some are better raw say for example Mulberry.
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Yes, I understand they should be dried when added to the aquarium, but what I mean is do I pick them already dry, when the tree has already drained all the nutrients it could for them or do I pick them green, dry them and then add them to the tank?

They won't be used as shrimp food, the tank will contain discus, rummynoses, corys and bristlenoses.
 
Others have put some good information across, but i will give my opinion because why not :lol:, leaves from Lime(Linden) and cherry will decompose quickly and are not very long term, lime is better as a food source than for leaf litter, oak, magnolia, walnut and sweet chestnut are good options for leaf litter, also walnut casings and acorn caps (not the acorn itself) should be fine to use, i have always steered clear of cherry, or any species that contain prussic acid myself, if you have any beech or alder locally the leaves and nuts/cones of those are great options too.

As far as drying them or picking them dry, i would take them dry from a clean source of leaf litter on the ground, preferable in a dry place with no pollution, but you can also pick green and press them in a book, they just don't look as good, they tend to have uneven colouration and can get mildew spots unless taken out of the pressing book every few days.
 
Has to be (preferably naturally) dried for leaf litter. For shrimp food, either is fine but some are better raw say for example Mulberry.
Zante said:
Yes, I understand they should be dried when added to the aquarium, but what I mean is do I pick them already dry, when the tree has already drained all the nutrients it could for them or do I pick them green, dry them and then add them to the tank?

They won't be used as shrimp food, the tank will contain discus, rummynoses, corys and bristlenoses.
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Best to get the already dried and shed leaves.

Someone else may know how/what happens when a leaf is manually dried vs naturally falls off.
 
Edvet said:
Anyone knows if Magnolia grandiflora can reasonably be grown in a pot? Or can be trimmed/pruned quite hard? Our garden is to full to add a 10 meter large tree, i could try to sneak in a smaller bush:D
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Difficult to keep small as once pruned they produce very large epicormic shoots, which you can remove to retain the previous shape, but leads to gradual loss of vitality.
 
Edvet said:
Anyone knows if Magnolia grandiflora can reasonably be grown in a pot?
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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
 
I've got a grandiflora in a pot at the minute. It was bought last year but is really just a glorified 6ft twig being a grafted branch. It's starting to grow really strongly and I think it will be quite big in a few years if I put it in the ground. I'm probably going to make a planter from old pallets for it and upgrade it every couple of years to try and limit the growth somewhat as we don't have space for a mature specimen and I know they don't like to be pruned that much or have their roots disturbed.
 
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.
 
Zante said:
Adding a couple of questions:

Walnut shells? Hazelnut shells? Almond, pecan and any other nut shell?
Click to expand...

I have a bathtub in my garden that i use each summer as pond setup in the garden with plants and goldfish. During the years it was about setup in every corner of the garden. I have sevral trees and chrubs around it, wallnuts, chestnuts cherry, grape. And i've found all in there fallen in fresh from the tree. The nuts the shells, fresh fruit, the blossoms, the leaves dry and fresh it just blows in. I never realy experienced any problems as long as it is maintained propperly it shouldn't accumulate to much. I'm not sure what the effect is if you over do it, to much of anything in a closed setup water column is never a good thing. You keep it all in and it doesn't get flushed it out. Only with the water changes you'll heve some flushing.

Most material you don't want is fresh material, in my case i take all out i see in it. But still it was in there for some days and sometimes i don't know how long exactly.. Without ever experiencing nasty effects.

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.. 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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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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