Indian Almond Leaves

Been toying with the idea of getting some Indian almond leaves for my tank as was sort of going for a South American amazon bio tape style aquarium with just corys, tetras a ram our 2 and a plec, I have some nice driftwood in the tank and 3 young amazon swords, mainly to grow and mask my filter intake and heater, and was gonna get some vall for the left hand side of the tank but was thinking leaf litter would maybe look nicer, would have to turn flow down quite a bit to not blow them around, but would they suit my style of aquarium as I do not know much about the leafs as can get 50 for $12?. Here is a pic so you can get an idea.

The corys would love leaf litter.
You can use oak or beech leaves instead of Indian almond,
Collect them in the autumn when they're falling from the trees, & store them in a cool dry place & you'll have a year's supply for free.
Don't collect leaves from hight pollution areas such as near heavily used roads or industrial sites as they may contain toxins.

Yes they would work, If you don't want them floating about the tank try wedging them behind something that's already in the tank. You could use the heater or filter intake to wedge them in place or under that gorgeous piece of wood. They will eventually rot and disintigrate and you might want to exchange them before they get to that stage. They will also add to the tannins from your wood (I like tannins in a tank!) tho the wood will evetually stop leaching them so the leaf litter would be a good replacement source.

Lillefishy said:

The corys would love leaf litter.
You can use oak or beech leaves instead of Indian almond,
Collect them in the autumn when they're falling from the trees, & store them in a cool dry place & you'll have a year's supply for free.
Don't collect leaves from hight pollution areas such as near heavily used roads or industrial sites as they may contain toxins.

Click to expand...

not really a tree expert and of any country in the world to go rummaging around to pick up leaf litter Australia is not one of them lol, knowing my luck I would be picking up the wrong leafs and a snake would be hiding underneath the leafs I pick up. And it isn't autumn till march next year now. But thanks for advice.

Mamashack said:

Yes they would work, If you don't want them floating about the tank try wedging them behind something that's already in the tank. You could use the heater or filter intake to wedge them in place or under that gorgeous piece of wood. They will eventually rot and disintigrate and you might want to exchange them before they get to that stage. They will also add to the tannins from your wood (I like tannins in a tank!) tho the wood will evetually stop leaching them so the leaf litter would be a good replacement source.

Click to expand...

thanks, and yea plan on just getting some little river stones to weight them down abit.

IAL are great for most tanks, depending on species you have of course.
 
But IAL has natural benefits for all tank stocking, so it is worth having in a tank, especially if you have shrimps, shrimps like these IAL to munch on.
 
Do be aware though, IAL will make you tank water stain a little bit, but i am a fan of this as its more natural imho than crystal clear water.

I pre-soak my catappas. They sink in about a day. They will stain the water and may affect the pH and TDS. Another way to go is to use rooibos tea. But it wont provide the leaf litter.
 
What folks don't get told is that in about two weeks catappas are degrading into tiny bits. In my tanks I replace them every 2 weeks.