Blackwater

[Chard56]

Does any body use oak tree leave tea for their Betta's rather than Indian almond leaves? I do and it works great! My water coming out of the tap is 8.0 to 8.2 and I was having a hard time with spawning and keeping the fry alive.

 

[grumpysteve]

i've never tried to alter my Ph because most things wont work on a permenant basis. but i'm getting very tempted to try something like this, as long as i know i can definitely get enough so i never run out. where do you get it from? do you put it in the tank and let it do its job in there? i'd be a bit worried about fluctuating Ph levels every time i do a water change personally, but i might have a bit of an experiment with it

 

[Chard56]

i've never tried to alter my Ph because most things wont work on a permenant basis. but i'm getting very tempted to try something like this, as long as i know i can definitely get enough so i never run out. where do you get it from? do you put it in the tank and let it do its job in there? i'd be a bit worried about fluctuating Ph levels every time i do a water change personally, but i might have a bit of an experiment with it

I'm lucky enough to have an oak tree 6 feet off my back door. I take and fill a 5 gallon bucket with dead leaves off the tree. I then put a pan of water with a handful of leaves on the stove to simmer until the water is a dark tea. I usually brew 5 gallons and save in a bucket. I either add to a tank by siphoning off a gallon and replacing slowly (a quart at a time)over an hour or putting 1 or 2 gallons of tea to a ten gallon tank and filling up with conditioned water. The PH of my water out of the tap is 8.0 to 8.2 and this "tea" comes out 5.6 to 6.4. It brings the PH in the tank down just enough and seems to entice the Betta's into spawning within hours or days of introducing them to it. I hadn't had a spawn since last July until putting this in. I've had 3 first time spawners in 10 days.

 

[OohFeeshy]

I haven't bought off them myself, but Dartfrog sell oak leaves. And because they're for frogs you don't need to worry about whether they're safe or not.