How to Indian Almond Leaves / Catappa Leaves

[JettsPapa]

On 6/9/2023 at 2:56 PM, Lennie said:

Also, I was planning to send you a dm about how your yellows doing. 

They're doing fine.

On 6/9/2023 at 2:56 PM, Lennie said:

Are they still shooting only yellow babies?

I've culled a few, but it's very few.

On 6/9/2023 at 2:56 PM, Lennie said:

Have you observed any sensitivity issues compared to other neos? Or still the same?

I haven't noticed any sensitivity issues at all.

[Shadow]

I have 7 neocaridina tanks and all are doing great. I have found the best way is to boil them for 15 mins and then let soak for an hour to remove tannins, also allows them not to float forever. I allowed two of my tank's leaves to soak less and they seem to really enjoy the tannic water w/ one having berried females, so its doing as well as the non tannic watered ones. They also seem to consume more of the leaves in the tannic waters than in the non tannic waters, not sure why, but its interesting. 

Best of luck on your shrimpy adventures! 

Beware though, in my experience, the more tannins...the higher the TDS gets faster. So you might have to watch your TDS slightly more and do very small water changes when it gets too high. 

 

[TOtrees]

On 6/9/2023 at 3:47 PM, JettsPapa said:

This picture was taken within a couple of hours of placing this magnolia leaf in one of my 10 gallon tanks.  

You might have accidentally mis-typed, but that's a cottonwood or poplar leaf. Not a problem for the tank, and obviously the shrimp love it, but just in case you're assuming it's magnolia... 🙂

On 6/10/2023 at 1:50 PM, DarkSceptor said:

First put them in boiling water as a cleanse. Let the water cool and soak until the water is nearly black.

Drain water and add one more batch of cold water and soak for a week.

This would be a way to use the catappa leaves, without as much tannins. Eg if you want to add leaf letter to your tank, but don't want as much discoloration of the water. The source or author where you got that instruction may have been a clear-water freak. 🙂

But I agree with @Lennie that the tannins in the water are a big part of why we use the leaves in the first place, and specifically choose things like catappa, oak and magnolia, as well as alder cones and some woods, for their tannin release. 

[JettsPapa]

On 6/12/2023 at 9:29 AM, TOtrees said:

You might have accidentally mis-typed, but that's a cottonwood or poplar leaf. Not a problem for the tank, and obviously the shrimp love it, but just in case you're assuming it's magnolia... 🙂

You're right, it is a cottonwood leaf, and thanks for catching it.  I went back and made the correction.

[RoyaleButterfly]

@Shadow I rinsed them let them soak in the water for a couple hours then put them in my tank. The shrimp love them! However, when I checked my water parameters they seemed to have lowered the ph and kh. Is that known? The ph is 6.4 and the KH is 0. I bought 3 lbs of crushed coral from ACO based on their instructions. Will this help get the water parameters back up to a good place?

[JettsPapa]

On 6/12/2023 at 1:20 PM, RoyaleButterfly said:

@Shadow I rinsed them let them soak in the water for a couple hours then put them in my tank. The shrimp love them! However, when I checked my water parameters they seemed to have lowered the ph and kh. Is that known? The ph is 6.4 and the KH is 0. I bought 3 lbs of crushed coral from ACO based on their instructions. Will this help get the water parameters back up to a good place?

It's my understanding that adding tannins will lower pH if your KH is low.  I believe adding crushed coral will help, but with my hard 8.2 pH water I've never needed to worry about it.

[TOtrees]

On 6/12/2023 at 2:20 PM, RoyaleButterfly said:

@Shadow I rinsed them let them soak in the water for a couple hours then put them in my tank. The shrimp love them! However, when I checked my water parameters they seemed to have lowered the ph and kh. Is that known? The ph is 6.4 and the KH is 0. I bought 3 lbs of crushed coral from ACO based on their instructions. Will this help get the water parameters back up to a good place?

I've never found single leaves here and there to affect pH much. What was your pH before you added the leaves?

FWIW if you're seeing lower pH due to leaves, and looking to raise it with coral, assuming or believing that you need to reach a specific number for things to be good or healthy (and I know you haven't said that, but I'm reading a bit between the lines), that's what most of us would call "chasing parameters". Stable maintenance with few changes, as long as parameters are not outside of the range that's acceptable or normal, is WAY better than a pinch of this to raise it, plus a dash of that to lower it, and something else to tweak the other number that changes because you raised the other, one, then repeat it all with every water change, and so on. Basically, keep things healthy and happy with as few interventions as possible. Less to go wrong. FYI I speak from experience. I had a tank with apistos and cories, and used a number of methods to keep the pH lower than what comes out of my tap (fluval stratum, remineralized RO), but once I stopped doing that and just focused on water changes with no adjustments, WAAAY better.  :) Turns out those fish do just fine in my not-too-hard-but-still-north of 7pH tap water. 

[Shadow]

On 6/12/2023 at 1:20 PM, RoyaleButterfly said:

@Shadow I rinsed them let them soak in the water for a couple hours then put them in my tank. The shrimp love them! However, when I checked my water parameters they seemed to have lowered the ph and kh. Is that known? The ph is 6.4 and the KH is 0. I bought 3 lbs of crushed coral from ACO based on their instructions. Will this help get the water parameters back up to a good place?

Honestly, the only parameters I really ever worry about is the TDS and GH. As I don't ever really add the tannins in, I am not super worried on the pH as my water is 7.4 naturally or around there. In regards to adding crushed coral, I wouldn't as it might raise the KH too high. I will say even after boiling and leaching the tannins, sometimes, depending where you source your leaves, they will still release tannins. In my experience, this is ok. Adding tannins in directly will def drop your pH low. Which for caridinas, isn't too worrysome as they love it, but with neocardinas, some might not like it super low. Right now, my tanks are thriving both with some tannins and without tannins. Let me reiterate, I have never directly added tannic water in...more so some of the leaves released more after I added. You can also do very minimal water changes to rebound your pH as after a few weeks the tannins will dissipate more. Hope this helps! 

[Shadow]

Also as @TOtrees mentioned, other factors could be lowering your pH. Test your tap water to get exact parameters...pH, TDS and GH, even test for Ammonia & always assume high chlorine/chloramine flushes post winters if you live in a big city in a cold area of the country. Fluval Stratum will drop a neutral pH tap water to 6.8 easy, I have seen it personally. Its why I prefer to use Aqueon Shrimp/Plant substrate, as it does not do this and also does not release particles into the water as bad. I have used a source on Etsy for all my catappa/almond/jackfruit leaves. I also add Catappa bark, Alder & Filao cones plus Tourmaline and Red Bee balls plus a ton of floating plants and a couple snails. I run my temps at 74-75F, TDS between 150-300 & GH between 4-8. Like I said I rarely check other parameters unless I see irregular activity or a lot of deaths. FYI, you an expect to lose at least 3 of 20 you start off with...a lot of times its due to random things like not molting properly. So test parameters, maybe do small water changes then if you are super worried, but besides that I have found in my experience they prefer their waters to stay the same and not fluctuate wildly...so beware and only do minimal water changes. If you need to bounce anymore questions off me, feel free to DM me or find me on socials. Definitely always down to chat shrimpy things. 🙂