Basic cheapskate hacks

[GaryE]

Oak trees are brilliant for aquarists. If you collect the leaves when they are still on the tree but finished, later in the Fall, you have a super source of tannins. You can put the dried leaves in tanks for a natural scape, lowering pH as you go. You can make a blackwater tea as an additive.

I only have access to red oaks and don't know the others. I'm on the lookout for accessible ones now. It's hunting season for oak leaves.

Maples do similar things but the leaves decompose rapidly. Oaks are sturdy.

 

[Colin_T]

We had an English Oak tree in our backyard when I was a kid. It was beautiful and shed its leaves every autumn and grew them back in spring. I used to collect the acorns and plant them into pots to give to people. A few months after we sold that place, the new owner cut all the big trees down, including the oak. Absolutely disgraceful as far as I'm concerned.

I had oak leaves in my daphnia pond and there was plenty of daphnia all year round.

For anyone who has an oak tree, if you get the acorns, they need to be planted within a few days of falling otherwise they don't germinate.

 

[Rocky998]

We had an English Oak tree in our backyard when I was a kid. It was beautiful and shed its leaves every autumn and grew them back in spring. I used to collect the acorns and plant them into pots to give to people. A few months after we sold that place, the new owner cut all the big trees down, including the oak. Absolutely disgraceful as far as I'm concerned.

I had oak leaves in my daphnia pond and there was plenty of daphnia all year round.

For anyone who has an oak tree, if you get the acorns, they need to be planted within a few days of falling otherwise they don't germinate.

Aw man... Why would someone do that to a beautiful big tree... That's just sad

 

[Alice B]

It is sad they cut the tree down. When I moved out here there was one little elm sapling at the back of the spare lot, and a 5 gallon fruitless mulberry in the back yard. I did remove the fruitless mulberry, planted a walnut that started from seed and is now about 30 feet tall. Planted a pair of pine trees, the live oak, and a couple that didn't make it in spring 2002. I put in the oaks too, water oak started from pond compost around 2004, it's about 30 feet tall, much faster growing than the black walnut. Planted peaches and pears when I got bees. The birds planted me a china berry which is invasive but sure gives a lot of shade, and I have added an Eve's Necklace. I'm on my 3rd and hopefully final Sweetgum tree. They like more rain than we get, I've lost 2 over the years. Shade is valuable here.

Ok. back to aquariums. The leaves need to still be on the tree but "finished"? On the red oak, the wind blows them all off about the time they turn red. Both the water oak and live oak shed their leaves in about April and put on new, they are evergreen, subject to Texas wind leaving the leaves on.

 

[GaryE]

I lived for a short time in a new development where the developers bulldozed a large area and popped houses on to it. I was 7.

They left one huge maple, and all the many kids in the neighbourhood loved that tree. One day they brought in a bulldozer, announced the tree was coming down the next day and left. Bad things happened to that bulldozer that evening. I can't say which group of kids demolished its controls and poured dirt into its gas tank. It may have been the ones who threw rocks at the one they brought in a few days later to replace it.

So in the end, there were no trees. If I go there now, it's like a woods with houses in it, as the people in the houses went planting mad to bring the place around again.

Here, oak leaves stay on til the winds of winter get them. One they are ready to fall, but haven't is the time to grab them.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

j

 

[Alice B]

I lived so many places growing up I have no idea whether the trees are still there. But when I bought my 1st house, it had big trees that stayed, and my 2nd house had a big fruitless mulberry, it was old and I pruned it and shaped it until I moved 13 years later, it got carpenter ants, I treated them. Ex cut it down. But he has not cut down the red oak that I planted 4 ft tall that is now 30 ft tall or taller, and the sweetgum, and I think he got my black willow, but it was kind of messy. I plant trees wherever I move, I give away potted trees too. Couple of oaks in 5 gallon pots in the garden waiting for a daughter to need them. But I do have to go dig out the elderberry endangering one of my ponds. Its off spring are on the south side of the fence now, a good place for them. I had no idea how big it could get when I planted it. This was 2018. Much of its growth is now on the other side of the fence. The oak tree has shaded this area too much.

 

[Alice B]

There is a pond behind that elderberry. Little waterfall filter and a whole pond and a fence... Reciprocating saw is out there. but now there is a line of elderberries on the other side of the fence.

 

[davros]

So people have eldeberries (elderberrys?). Never seen one. Immoralized tho: “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!”

 

[Alice B]

not only that, elderberry syrup has a reputation for flu prevention or speeding up recovery. I have a freezer full of elderberries from prior years to make syrup. Had more but took some out and forgot to put them back. You can also make wine with them

 

[Essjay]

You can make elderberry wine, and my husband's family used to make elderflower "champagne". After we were married we used to go and pick elderflower heads (from bushes growing in open spaces) to make it.

 

[GaryE]

Elderberries? Humpph. next you're going to tell me oranges grow on trees or coffee comes from plants.

Seriously though, I have never seen one. They strike me more as something out of Tolkien than out of a garden. Very exotic.

 

[LostBear]

I love my turkey baster! Especially for anyone breeding fish, they're great for collecting eggs, moving tiny wrigglers, cleaning out small containers, rescuing teeny fry from the bucket after a water change, sucking up uneaten food from a tank so you don't have to get a syphon and bucket out - so many little tasks that this £1 item has been useful for, I can't even list them all!
I bought a big bag of filter sponge
View attachment 167632
have cut off sections for all of my filters, and a cut off piece is useful for cleaning the inside or outside of the glass, or scrubbing decor. Bought another bulk bag of filter floss the same way, and it's lasted for ages. Much cheaper than buying the silly little pre-cut things.

I've never had one, but if you have one of those filters that comes with "cartridges" that they say you have to change out a different one every month? It's a con! Stop buying replacements and adapt your filter to work how you need it to. You don't need phosphate remover and ammonia cartridges or carbon running all the time - it's just to make you buy (expensive) replacements all the time. No need. Adapt the filter with you own sponge/floss/ceramic media and the only thing you'll need to replace is the floss now and then. Sponges will last for years.

I picked one of these up from somewhere like Poundland once, and it's one of the most useful items in my "fish cleaning stuff" drawer. View attachment 167633

Stiff bristles mean it's great for things you really need to scrub hard, like stubborn algae on decor, wood or stone that you're planning to add to a tank, since the bristles are stiff but also not hard enough to scratch or cause damage. If you buy dragon stone, you have to really scrub at all the tiny holes to remove the clay and loose bits of stone before you can add it to your tank. This thing helped me out a lot doing that.
For anyone with a canister filter like mine, one of these is perfect for cleaning the muck out of the hoses:
View attachment 167634

And for getting into nooks and crannies with all types of filters, and fish stuff that needs a scrub, bottlebrushes are super handy for all sorts of tasks.
View attachment 167635

Edited because I know the difference between "loose" and "lose", and it's one of my pet hates when the wrong one is used! So I can't just leave it there when I did it, lol.

Where did you get your filter sponge from? Is that what it's actually marketed as?

i get resentful having to replace cartridges (though I don't do it every month - I rinse them under the tap and re-use them a few times).

 

[Uberhoust]

With a good rinse the carbon/filter cartridges can be used indefinitely from my experience. Just remember the carbon will be saturated and will not pick up much more in the way of chemical impurities but it still serves as substrate for the nitrifying bacteria. In most cases you don't need the carbon filtration anyways.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Where did you get your filter sponge from? Is that what it's actually marketed as?

i get resentful having to replace cartridges (though I don't do it every month - I rinse them under the tap and re-use them a few times).

Yep, I just searched "bulk filter sponge" on Amazon, got one like this. This might even be the one I got.
Definitely, never buy another cartridge! They're a complete con. Cut the bulk bought sponge to fit the size of the cartridge plastic and hold it against the plastic bit and slot it in. @Uberhoust is right, you don't need carbon in the tank on a day to day basis. Only really needs adding if you're struggling to get the water clear, or if you've used meds or something, and the carbon will help clean them out. He's also right that if you have some in your filter already, then it's maxed out it's capacity for absorbtion after a month or so, but will still work as filter media for the bacteria to grow on, so no need to throw it out unless you want to replace it with sponge/floss/something else.

Check out this video for ways to maximise your filter and get rid of having to buy cartridges! Really useful video