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Long term aquarist and ecologist here. I *know* that leaves are the primary nutrient input in freshwater habitats - but i never made the connection to add them to my tanks for this reason. I was brainwashed by aquarium superstition. Thank you
Does it make sense to put leaves on my grovel? How can I transform a traditional fish tank with grovel and a few plants to a more father fish tank? Is it possible to add the soil and the layers on the grovel to chsnge eveything? Or is it too late? I have fish there already.
Father Fish, you are a kindred spirit. I've kept aquariums for many years, and I want to truly thank you for educating and enlightening others to recognize and respect inherent ecological processes. Meanwhile, there's this other paradigm of overly manicured, sanitized aquariums that require constant maintenance and expensive materials. Some may view natural, balanced aquariums as "dirty" and unattractive, but isn't that what we all want - a slice of underwater nature in our home? Nature has it all done for you, just embrace and harness those processes, and success will happen.
I just went to the pond near my house and brought a few dead leaves and even a small piece of an old bamboo, but I needed to see this video to give me the strength before I put them in my aquarium, lol...
@@Auditing.northern.N.Y. ok.well i'm going to soak mine with the aquarium water for a week..then throw them in. als can i throw them in on top of gravel? cheers
@@RAZASHARP I just let mine float till they sink. Dry leaves absorb the water fairly fast. I'm no expert, but whatever works for you. Green leaves seem to take forever to sink.
I started collecting rain water and I top the tank off with it. When I do it’s full of mosquitoes 🦟 larvae 🐛 and all kinds of other critters that my fish go absolutely crazy for! They eat organic real food and I’m sure they are very healthy and happy! Thanks for the tips Father Fish 🐠
Yesterday I took some leaves from a creek in Australia and put it in my tank.. I have never seen my shrimp move so fast! They loved it! and so do the snails. Now I will get more.
To those wondering if leaves really are worth while they are. I introduced leaves right from my backyard into all of my tanks. Every single tank after 2-4 weeks saw a plant explosion. I don’t know what else to say other than leaves are natures natural fertilizer. And if you’re wondering I have both cichlid, characins, plecos and loaches in the above mentioned tanks. All the fish are thriving just fine still.
It’s like Bob Ross I love it. Find your happy place and then just drop a big glob of dirt and leaves in it. Lol. Love it!! It totally brought me back to watching channel 11. ☺️☺️💙
Your songbird chose the most perfect soundtrack for this video! To share an experience: Our local park has a very healthy creek that grows hornwort and guppy grass. One day I took home a clump of guppy grass with some of the mud it anchored to and put it in a 2 gallon glass vase with about 3 inches of sand and fresh rain water and some of the creek water (this was long before I knew deep-substrate was a thing). In a few days, it exploded with all the creek animals hiding in the guppy grass. Snails, planaria, huge infusoria, rotifers, water spiders, ramshorn snails, pond snails, detritus worms, and much to my great joy a damselfly nymph! I kept water in it and everything stayed alive for about 9 months. Then something happened that killed the grass - I can't remember, I think I used the wrong water container by accident and it had some cleaning chemical residue - and the whole thing crashed. I wanted to try again the next year, but the city did some nearby construction, and we had a hard rain, and the runoff from the project contaminated the creek and killed off everything but a few brownish wisps of hair algae. 😢 I hope next year the plant life comes back. I'm planning to do my first dirted deep-sub tank conversion on Tuesday to save my dwindling H. Formosa school and I have tons of water logged pin oak leaves and twigs that the fish are going to LOVE. Thank you for giving me hope back. I stumbled across your videos only yesterday, just as I was thinking of throwing in the towel on the hobby! (After a very infuriating weekend in the fish room!)
Happy to hear from you greencaller14. We have LOTS of opportunity to share. Streams m,w,f,sun. A DISCORD forum with lots of informative and chatty channels, Video meetups, and so much more. Join us. Get you joy back.
After reading Waldstad’s book, I stopped cleaning my leaf litter out of my tanks and stopped worrying about it all together. In nature, there are cleanup crews, we don’t need to be them.
Hello Father fish. Until recently my fish kept dying. So , I changed every tank your way. I corrected leaves ,twigs and muds from the pond. And kept them in well water in the bucket for more than a week. I was afraid to open the lid. I thought it smell bad or got slimy. And ,. I opened it! Water was clear than before and no smells at all !!! I don’t doubt you at all but I was so amazed ! I put them in my tanks. Thank you for your educational video! I am so glad I found you.
Just wanted to thank you for all of your videos. I created my first dirted tank and it is so stable. I only have to add water on occasion. No water changes needed in over 3 months.
Yes yes yes, do not be afraid of nature. My favorite thing about leaf litter is looking at the skeletons of the leaves after they have been munched on by all the little critters, so cool.
I tried to explain to people that leaves are good and won't give their fish fungal infections a long time ago when I first tried it myself in 2015 but most laughed at me.
I sunk one of those plastic kiddy pools into my back yard and filled it with water so that I would have somewhere to soak bits of wood and branches for hardscapes. Then I thought, why not turn it into a little pond. So I threw some dirt in there and old leaves and put a few floating plants too. Then I bought some pond plants and water plants in pots, and stood them in there too. I've been harvesting mosquito larva out of it and the leaves for my nano tanks. I've been using these big leaves that look like Maple leaves, although I don't know what they are. They look lovely in my tanks and the shrimp and snails love them. Scrunched up orange and red leaves in strategic places around a tank make it look more beautiful. If your light isn't good enough to grow red plants, this is a way to get some natural looking warm colors in there.
Done a dirt bottom aquarium over 20 yrs ago . Standard fluro lighting . Have had a number of tanks since then , even with led lighting and decent grade substrate . I've never really managed to grow a decent planted tank like I did all those yrs ago .
Maybe it’s just me and I haven’t got the hang of it but I liked the old lighting bulbs better years ago for my aquariums vs the LEDs now. I find these new lights very disturbing to my eyes.
This tank is absolutely lovely!! Nature at its finest within a glass box ♥️🌿🐟 I can never get enough of your teachings when it comes to setting up these beautiful aquariums! I've ended up with a lot of Catawba leaves and some botanicals I think I'm going to take some of the excess of the leaves and actually crush them up and put them into the soil substrate of the next aquarium I put in! Sometimes I just like the plain black sand look and that way it will add to the humus at the base! THANK YOU Father Fish as always for your incredible teachings 🙏🌿🐟🌿♥️
Oh this is the first time old dry leaves with fungus come to my mind for something useful. I’m getting outside to get some to get some foundation for the food chain for my fish tanks.
I put oak leaves in my tank about 6 months ago. I didn’t know at the time but my kuhles had bred, I moved a piece of wood to plant some more plants and there they all were, just less than an inch long..
Awsome, I used to trim my plants then take the trimed parts an let them dry totally near the window, they are dead after some period, then store them and put some of them back to the aquarium as fertilizer and food source
OK. That's good. You can also leave the plant cutting in t he tank, either planted or floating. They will provide nutrients for microfauna as they deteriorate or they will grow new plants.
I added chopped leaves to my garden this fall. It will enrich my sandy soil. Didn't realize it would work in my aquarium. Getting ready to splash back in and get my fins wet again.
Thank you Father Fish, your videos have been so helpful. I was on the verge of giving up due to alot of fish loss, but your practical and common sense approach has helped me to stay with the hobby and invest in 2 more tanks😊
Sparkling, crystal clear water is actually abnormal for most aquatic creatures. It only occurs in nature in springs, or glacier melt, which are usually devoid of fish. Most tropical exotics come from jungle rivers, that are full of decaying leaves, twigs, etc, and are of an amber color. Natural Amazonian aquariums are becoming more popular, since they provide a more realistic environment for the fish.
@father fish it is because of u i learn to appreciate putting leaf litter in my aqurium after then i never turned back ...thank for teaching me to adapt to ur knowledge of this
Lol ! Getting people to put dirt in there tank is hard enough ! Now I’m telling people to put leaves in there tank ! Thanks for the laugh I did my dirt tank and topped it with sand . I should have rinsed the sand . Ooops!!😮 I went to the lake I pulled out whatever plants I could find growing in it and gathered leves I have to say, it was different with the leaves they were already black And I pulled out some drift wood Too. But it had bark on it and my gold fish. Just love to pull up my plants and chews off the bark from my drift wood And then the black leaves So the.bottom of my tank doesn’t look so pretty But will get use to it. Thank you for educating me g us on how to do a new melenium Fish tank. In 2024. It’s time to do it different . No more sterril tank mate 😅 And I love making the dirt tank aquarium . I enjoyed making this tank so much Keep educating about bring life into your new aquarium
I was paid to clear those litters frm fish ponds when i was young. Well that's the price u pay for beauty i guess. Lets face it, those litters arent beautiful to look at but they definitely serve a purpose.
Thank you for all of your wisdom, Father Fish. I just redid my whole 55 gallon with dirt/sand substrate to better create a natural ecosystem for my fish and plants, after recently watching your videos. So essentially, adding these dead leaves is just feeding the soil (and shrimp/snails, etc..). Meaning, I will never have to replace the soil in my aquarium and I can just keep feeding it nutrients through the dead leaves?
I also put dry Indian Almond into outside fish pot until it completely broken down. My pot is still clear and my fish healthy. If substrates not mud everything is ok or not water going bad very fast when leaves sink to the bottom.
Hello, much respect for someone that clearly just wants to share with others! Just found your videos and nothing i can say feels it can match your amazing willingness to share knowledge with others. So Thank you! I have my tank for about 2 years and been a "victim" of the mainstream mambo jambo speech of the shops and industry. Until a few days ago (when i ran into your videos) I kept wondering why my tank keeps always a steady water chemistry and the "few" type of fish and shrimp i have there do not show any problems. All i ever did was just plain ignorance and apart for a major disaster i created myself all runs fine and like self sustained way. I almost felt guilty for having a tank so stable in terms of measured water quality and apparent good conditions for life on it. Now when i see this video i can not stop wondering if i should also add leaves to it. In there live 2 small pleco (sorry i have no idea of the species - yellow colcor that do not grow more than 20cm), many clear color shrimps and also now many red color shrimps also), like 50 guppys and a lone tetra neon. Guppyes were a mistake in the past that i regret but as i mean no harm to the fish i have to live with it. So i kindly ask your advise for two things: - how can i introduce some fish to control guppies reproduction as they are filling up my 200l tank? I wish no harm to fish but this is getting our of hand and i have no one to give them away. - should i introduce leaves/mud as you show here or as my tank seems to be balanced and self sustained (i just add water as needed)? Or this is like a best practice action we should do anyway? Thanks in advance for your time and help!
6:30 deserves a "Thriller" music 🤣🤣🤣 I can see PetSmart & others alike having a heart attack right there: It's "dangerous" stuff FF your doing (and you are having fun while at it) 🤣 Break those stupid rules we've been fed for so long. I saved my fish because of you. And I'm having fun now finally. God bless 😘
I use fresh branches of mulberry leaves in my community tank, and when fall comes around i use the dried maple leaves. I love the detrimus it creates. My fish are all super healthy in that tank. Now I have a goldfish tank and right now its bare bottom. But I plan to add sand and do the same thing in this tank (minus the branches of mulberry leaves, as I will be adding live plants)
Hi from the UK Father Fish! Love you videos and your methods for fish keeping are fascinating. I’m going to give the leaf litter a go (I’ve collected some from a local freshwater lake). There’s loads of scaremongering online about potential harmful parasites I could be introducing to the tank, is that something I should be concerned about? Keep up the good work and thanks for all your knowledge!
Just to be on the safe side of things make sure any predatory insect larvae wasn’t attached to any of the aquatic plants 😅 it happened to me once and lost some nice fish due to and water scorpion lol.
@@calvinjones4480 I have seen shrimp like larvae hidden months after adding the aquatic plants. Lucky for me the tank is home to guppies and giant danio. I thank you for your concern because i see some weird insects at the bottom. I have nerite snails also and they enjoy eating whatever plant I add.
Have you ever seen "Life in Jars?" RU-vid channel? He does alot of videos about aquatic biospheres and the microorganisms. It is a great visual representation of what you're talking about with bringing "life" into our aquariums. Thank you for all your great content and knowledge
Father fish, what about plants that have died that are already in the tank, such as lotus leaves and stem, should I pull them out or let them stay in there and further breakdown
I believe that the high incidence of HITH in south american fish is directly due to not enough vit c and the need for tannins in the water for their overall health. I have noticed that my south american fish are far less aggressive when the lighting is subdued by the addition of blackwater. In the amazon leaves, fruit and the insects who eat the fruit fall or are washed into the amazon, the fish eat the insects and fruit. My old Australian rainbow tank had dried Banksia and bottle brush leaves and seed pods for a nice dark blackwater.
I just recently have been working on my 150gal-ish outdoor garden pond and found that my marginal pickerel weed came back very strong this spring. It is growing in a mesh basket hanging off of the rim down inside of the pool (baskets which were mostly filled with compost). As it turns out, the interior sloping sides of the pond had gathered leaf matter from last year just under the baskets, and this leaf mold was functioning as a growing medium for maybe 2/3rds of the plant's roots, as the majority of the plant's roots were protruding from the basket mesh. I doubt if they'd have been doing this well if not for the partially decayed leaves, which btw are likely mostly black oak leaves with a bit of post oak, hickory, and white oak leaves. Now, I'm not suggesting that people just throw a bunch of leaves into their ponds, as I do think that properly planting and fertilizing is important, I'm just affirming with my own experience, the natural processes which kinda sorta make stuff grow. "I would conclude that fresh organic matter (algae, pine needles) inhibits root growth while less fresh organic matter (straw, peat) probably stimulates root growth. This general consensus among aquatic botanists - based on experimental and correlational in situ studies - is that the growth of both submersed and emergent plants increases on organic-rich sediments." - Ecology of the Planted Aquarium
I made the mistake of putting dead leaves of a Sycamore in my tank and it made it smell so foul I had to flush it out 3 times! The smell was so bad I gagged and they where only in it for 1 day!
Guess you won't do that again. I might have made the same mistake if you had not shared that bit of your experience. Thank you. We will be sure to never use sycamore leaves. Partially rotted leaves from a body of water are best. They contain many microorganisms beneficial to your aquarium.
