Any other benefits?
Yes, there is more… I had my suspicions that having dead leaves in aquariums was actually acting as a food for some fish, particularly with fry. I was able to witness that fry in tanks with leaf litter seem to grow bigger faster and I could often see the young fish grazing on the leaves.
I had assumed that it was the leaves themselves that were being eaten but while reading the TFH book, “Culturing Live Foods”, Michael Hellweg makes reference to using dead leaves from hardwood trees as a method of feeding larval fish.
Leaf litter may also provide a source of food for the fry of some species, such as this
Dekeyseria brachyura © Colin Dunlop
He explains that blackwater habitats are characterized by having large amounts of leaf litter and very low pH and that there are relatively few planktonic animals on which young fish can predate. Some fish species get round this problem by excreting large amounts of slime from their bodies for the fish to eat (discus, uaru etc) and this can sustain the young fish for several weeks.
As dead leaves are broken down by bacterial and fungal action they produce a slime and
it would seem that this is what the baby fish are feeding on. I have certainly had high survival rates from loricariid fry where leaves have been present.
Lastly on this subject, the leaves also seem to kick-start infusoria populations, again perfect for feeding tiny fry.
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