Time to head outside, northern hemisphere aquarists...

It's the most wonderful time of the year, lalalala.

Well it isn't, but if you're into botanicals in your tanks, it's a very good one. Now is the time to go on a good walk and try to identify oak tree locations, if you live somewhere they grow. Where I am, I have both burr oaks, and red oaks. You need low enough branches that you can pick the dry dead leaves before they fall off. Leaves on the ground can already be into the recycling process. Dried leaves can stored, and put into tanks to provide tannins, and natural looking cover for fish that live in leaf litter in the wild.

Oak leaves last a long time, but should be regularly replaced as anything breaking down in a tank can have a negative effect. It doesn't mean they will, but since the possibility exists and leaves are free, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Oaks are ideal because of their durability and high tannin content. Maples also have a lot of tannins, but the leaves decompose rapidly and make a bit of a mess. You can use them in filtration bags to treat water, but you won't get much of a leaf litter look with that - just brown stained water.

You probably can't pick them yet. My two trees are far from ready, though their colours are great. But find some now, and when they're ready, go get some, put them somewhere dry and you'll have a winter's supply for rainforest tanks. If you fail to find them, you'll have had a good healthy walk where trees grow.

I have family who live very close to Oak Island, from the TV series, and I suppose I could go there... if there are still oaks there, maybe there is a tiny bit of treasure to be found.

Beech, sycamore, magnolia, elm, poplar, cottonwood, tuliptree, birch, alder, aspen, and ash are also all safe. Some last longer than others, some have nicer shapes for better aesthetics.

The dried pods are useful as well as botanicals.
Example, sycamore ball pods, if they're the hardened small pods they make for nice botanical additions. The bigger pods are nice too as long as they're firm, but they might burst in water and make a mess lol. The tiny hard ball pods are best. Last a very long time, though they also take forever to sink.
Same goes for alder cones, which are more commonly used in the hobby. If you have access to alder trees, these are great.
Dried brown acorn tops are another great one! The shells, not so much, they break down fast, but the caps do not

I love my Magnolia grandiflora tree, and every leaf on the ground.

I have live oak, red oak and water oak in my yard. And sweetgum. A long way from brown here

I have trouble with alder cones. I am surrounded by them, but I wonder if I have the wrong species here. The cones do pretty well nothing. No visible tannins. Does anyone have any advice about when to harvest, etc?

GaryE said:

I have trouble with alder cones. I am surrounded by them, but I wonder if I have the wrong species here. The cones do pretty well nothing. No visible tannins. Does anyone have any advice about when to harvest, etc?

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Alder isn't super common in my area unfortunately, so can't speak for personal collecting, but I've heard they're good to collect in winter, but unsure if that's just because they're easier to see lol

So I'm coming back here and expanding on my sycamore pod thing.

This is an easy botanical for those of us in north America and UK (called plane trees there afaik)

However, you don't want to collect ones that look like this:


These are likely to explode in fluffs even under water.

I did experiment with them, which if the spikes are firm, they may be fine in water too, but if they're loose or falling apart, no good.

Firm one under water.



The best ones to collect are the empty hard knobs left behind.


Here is a water-worn one in my tanks:



They're hard and last a long time, though don't give off much for tannins. Great for folks who want some natural debris without heavy staining in the water.


Hopefully this helps show people what to look for in terms of sycamore pods. The loose broken off bark is also great botanical use!

Our across the road neighbour has plane trees (2 of them) in his front garden, his wife wants to get rid of them as they grow far too large for a typical UK front garden, but he likes them. He is currently disposing of the leaves which cover his lawn on a daily basis.

I wonder if he has any of those seed pods lying around?



I did wonder when you said sycamore. These are the seeds from what we in the UK call sycamores.

Essjay said:

Our across the road neighbour has plane trees (2 of them) in his front garden, his wife wants to get rid of them as they grow far too large for a typical UK front garden, but he likes them. He is currently disposing of the leaves which cover his lawn on a daily basis.

I wonder if he has any of those seed pods lying around?



I did wonder when you said sycamore. These are the seeds from what we in the UK call sycamores.
View attachment 354380

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Yeah your "sycamore" are what we call "maple" here, acer genus trees. Funny how that worked haha but those are safe trees too!


This is the tree I'm talking about for UK folk, I love these trees. We call them sycamore here in north America. I wonder who the heck decided to swap that around between our regions

The leaf litter from both these are good to use, break down fast though