Driftwood Size Per Gallon? Also, Tannins Alternatives?

[Exquisite]

Is there any rule of thumb for minimum size of DW vs size of tank (and still receive the benefits)?  My friend has some small pieces and I wonder what is enough.  I do have fake wood in my "tanks", which I could remove, but then I can't return them and would therefore have fake wood just sitting around, so I would like to actually keep both the fake wood in addition to the real wood.
 
Also, is there an alternative to IAL and driftwood that will provide the benefits of tannins to my water?  I am not able to find IAL at a reasonable price or reasonable shipping turn around time (17 days!).  So, in the event that I cannot acquire some, what alternatives do I have to choose from?

 

[Tongue_Flicker]

Not really. As long as it doesn't take much of the open swimming spaces. Any safe wood to use underwater normally produces tannins over time but not as much as your average IAL or mopani

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Oddly enough there are a few things that will work and I happen, ocassionally, to offer not only catappas, but I also have an alternative, rooibos tea. (I am a bit nuts and I buy stuff like this at wholesale prices in quantity.) Rooibos provides all of the benefits of the almond leaves and more, it costs less and is less messy. The one difference is it will not lower pH or soften water. It does not have tanins but it stains the water in the same fashion
 
Contact Wildbetta here and ask her about the rooibos. You can also read a blurb about it on Wiki- http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooibos . I became familiar with it via a wild angel site when a Biochemistry professor in S. Africa discussed its use on the angel site. Here is some of what he said in addition to referring folks to the wiki info:
 

 
This is the important part in that for fishkeeping we are interested in the plant phenolic compounds which act as antioxidants, and at the same time that act as antibacterial components. We have had a lot of discussions in the past about the benefits of humic acids on altum keeping and humic acids are the same as plant phenolics, so this is what everyone has been using already. Oak leaves contain a lot of the plant phenolic called quercetin (derived from the Latin name for the oak tree, Quercus robur) and rooibos also contains some quercetin and the compound aspalathin, which is closely related to quercetin.

Other benefits that are coming from research conducted by colleagues of mine in the Biochemistry Department at the University of S., that I work in, are that rooibos has natural stress relieving properties and we all know that altums are exposed to significant stress during transport and during initial adaptation to aquariums. I can inform you from my knowledge in the immunology field that stress inhibits the ability of the immune system to fight disease, so if you can reduce stress, then that would have major advantages for the immune system thereby fighting disease.