Decaf tea for tannins?

[GaryE]

I regularly use rooibos tea bags to add tannins to my tanks, but I was just putting the kettle on for the impending arrival of some British friends, and I opened a package of decaffeinated Yorkshire tea. One of my friends only drinks the decaf stuff.
I know there's going to be a lot left over when they head back home. I'm not a tea drinker, and on the rare occasions I do drink it, it won't be decaf. But while I know the answer is yes, somewhere, have any of you used decaf black tea like that to stain water?

 

[MaloK]

A member mentioned making tea for His/Her fish this week, loll...

Don't remember who tho.

 

[seangee]

I use Rooibos because the plant is so delicate its pretty much guaranteed to be organic, even if you don't pay extra for the label. I don't know what else may be in it.

 

[gwand]

My English fish enjoy High tea.

 

[Back in the fold]

How much do you use ? Do you figure in a certain amount ? Does it decrease acidity ? Can you use too much ?

 

[OMG_FL]

I've done experiments with few different types of tea (even with homemade tea)
If you can find a good quality organic decaf tea it's really good (better than normal tea because of low caffeine levels)
But for me using tea as tanning isn't effective as much as indian almond leaves extract
1.tea tannings tend to cause a just a bit of cloudyness than ial extract
2.tea gives off a reddish brown colour while ial gives a more amber brown colour (idk about u but i prefer the amber colour over the reddish one cuz it looks more natural)
Other than than it's perfectly fine to use decaf tea

 

[OMG_FL]

A member mentioned making tea for His/Her fish this week, loll...

Don't remember who tho.

It's mee

 

[seangee]

How much do you use ? Do you figure in a certain amount ? Does it decrease acidity ? Can you use too much ?

I can only answer for Rooibos
Easiest way is on the morning of W/C day stick one or more bags in a mug and fill with boiling water. I just leave the bags in until it cools to room temp and then add enough to the tank get the desired effect. For me thats one bag for 50-60l. You can just drop them in the water but I prefer the extra layer of protection that boiling gives (even if it only in my head). And I can see the results immediately and don't have to remember to remove it after a few days. It doesn't take long to figure out how much you like to add for each tank. And zero cloudiness.
No difference to any of the things I can test for.
It does give a slightly reddish tint, I would say more gold than red, my tanks all have green on the top and the end result is a warm golden appearance. I'm not home for a couple of days yet, but if I remember I'll take a pic with the SLR at the weekend using a grey scale card for white balance to avoid phone / camera software trying to interpret the colour. If I forget and you actually want to know remind me ,

 

[GaryE]

I tried it, as I could see no reason why it would harm fish. I got a deep rich brown/red with 2 attached bags in the filter of a 20 gallon. I like the effect. No cloudiness and to my eye, more like peat filtration would do.
2 bags in a 75 gave a more yellowy tone.

I noticed my pH test kit was history, so the next time I'm in a store, I'll get one and see if it does anything. It's such a tiny amount of plant material I doubt it does more than colour the water. We'll see.