My "peat" rabbit hole complete with Coffee

As is often with so many internet searches I do, I started at one point and wound up in 13 different directions while researching "peat"moss. How this happened was I recently started putting pairs together and trying to get some breeding going.I have used Peat many times to soften my water and add tannins and lower pH. I like the economy of it. A big bale of it will last me forever and once I am done, I just add the spent peat to my tomato pots. I have an RO water filter but really don't want to use it as we had a real dry summer and I am on a well.

So while searching for a paper on Tannin extraction I was led to link on the UK banning Peat for Gardening by 2024. I was surprised and not surprised. Peat takes thousands of years to form and to rip it out of the ground is akin to strip mining for Coal. Its very devastating to the ecology of the area. Now the rabbit hole led me to see the status here in the USA. From what I can tell , its not banned yet but there are signs that it will become harder to get and that movements are there to ban it .

https://peatfreegardeningusa.org/pea...united-states/

Though I will find it an inconvenience if its banned, I am ok with it as a naturalist and Biologist. I have spent many hours exploring Bogs (peat forms at their bottom)and they are probably my favorite ecological system in the world. Just as a whim I started thinking of alternatives for my aquarium use. I have used Indian almond and Rooibos tea, they work well. Oak leaves, and oak bark is good too, I remembered I use coconut husk fiber (coir) in some reptile tanks and invert habitat and that lead me to another Rabbit tunnel. Researching Coconut Coir. This is sold in compressed bricks fairly inexpensive and should also leach tannins, but I found out that it has some attributes that make it not a good choice. Its pH tends to be close to neutral where peat is acidic. The Coir also can have high salt content and that is not what I want. Lastly it is high in Phosphorus, again not really what I want in my tank.

I doubled back up the tunnel and took another branch.This one led me to my favorite pick me up Drink..Coffee! Why not? It does have tannins , though less than tea ( coffee about 4.6% tannin vs 11.2% tea) and its acidic , has several acids including Phosphoric acid( used to lower pH in aquariums and hydroponics) and Chlorogenic Acid ( an antioxidant with alot of potential) .. The million dollar question was what about the caffeine? Deep dive into the rabbit hole and wow, coffee and Caffeine are a bit controversial . Turns out caffeine is probably not good for aquariums. My dreams of my fish feeling that caffeine rush and going into a breeding frenzy evaporated quickly. Apparently there are indications that Caffeine in aquariums leads to a rapid spike in Ammonia. The research showed that the culprit was a common and ever present bacteria, Pseudomonas (source https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/sss/31/..down and read the whole article its interesting). Article here backs up the Pseudomonas using caffeine

Quote:

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Pseudomonas sp. isolated in our laboratory from coffee plantation soil is capable of utilizing caffeine (1, 3, 7-trimethylxanthine) as sole carbon and nitrogen source and is capable of degrading high concentrations of caffeine (Dash and Gummadi, 2006b; Gokulakrishnan et al., 2007

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. It should be noted that Pseudomonas can cause fish related diseases like rots and ulcers. It is a superb opportunist bacteria.

What a total buzzkill. Its probably best to not pour that black cup of java into your fishtank! Thoroughly bummed I begin my long trek up the rabbit hole and as I came to the next intersection of tunnels. Where would it take me?lol:) enough for one day!

al

I can't wait till tomorrow. I want more please, sir.

Me too :D

Bummer on possible uses for used coffee :p

Al, coffee grounds are considered "green" when used in compost piles, meaning that they are a source of Nitrogen to help break down "Browns" ie: leaves, wood, ect that are carbon.

Thanks for sharing that with us Al!

After several years of living solely in the USA we are back in Mexico this winter. Brought my mamá with us to escape the cold.

It required a simplification of the hobby, and I took down the FishNook. I now have a 40 breeder in my home in Green Valley, Arizona and a P90 (it was a gift!) in my small Álamos, Sonora casita. The idea is to schlep the plants and fish in a bucket for the 1 day journey every 6 months as we go back and forth. Worked great this fall... no fish losses on the way down at all with a heater and airpump in a 5 gallon bucket, run by a tiny inverter plugged into my Nissan Frontier.

So what does this have to do with your discussion? Well in the USA, I have a fairly decent RO setup, where all of the waste product waters my Grapefruit and Orange Tree. So, very soft water for my planted tanks that feature just tetras, corydoras, shrimp, and ottos. When in Mexico, I don't have the level of automation that I had in the FishNook, so, well I do less water changes and I use purified water purchased from a place down the street. It's about 60 cents for 5 gallons, so a 20 gallon water change on my 48 gallon P90 (it's slightly bigger than my 40 breeder in AZ) cost $2.50 in water.

However, it's not as soft as I'd like, so I've been using dried Almond leaves. Where do I collect the Almond leaves? My neighbors yard. Just dry them out on the stone patio for a month before introducing them to the tank. The tannins are incredible. Just 2 leaves and the P90 looks like a black water setup. Too dark in fact. I've noticed the darkness is restrictig light to the point that ground cover plants are suffering a bit. I've removed the Almond leaves now and will probably do a series of massive water changes over the next few weeks. Am, I introducing 'nasties' into the water using the dried almond leaves? Well, I don't know... But I haven't lost any corydoras (and I have delicate pygmy and dwarf corydoras); they are kind of my canaries in the coalmine...

(I'm editing this comment to make another note... I also have quite a bit of driftwood in this setup. Much more than I have used in the past... Perhaps some of it is not sufficiently aged and is leaching tannins into the water column as well..)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andicca

Al, coffee grounds are considered "green" when used in compost piles, meaning that they are a source of Nitrogen to help break down "Browns" ie: leaves, wood, ect that are carbon.

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You know, I have always used them in my compost piles too, I pretty much use anything that is plant matter, green, brown etc. Grass clippings and pulled weeds are my usual nitrogen source, but coffee grounds get thrown in too. What could be wrong with coffee grounds in my compost pile or sprinkled around my plants? Its even supposed to be repellent to slugs. Well on yesterday's rabbit hole trip I did end up taking a few tunnels that I just thought were dead ends or possibly belonged to some other critter than the rabbit I was following. Case in point, https://www.ruralsprout.com/coffee-g...in-the-garden/.

Now, rabbit holes can be dangerous things, some of these tunnels will take you the strangest places.. The above site is one that had me shaking my head saying "what?!". I'm not sure how much of that website is based on science, or snippets from the site owner's personal rabbit hole journeys, but a telltale sign that a tunnel may be a dead end is when its got way too many ads...

I did double back out of there quickly but filed away a few key points from that last tunnel about coffee grounds. I soon found myself in another tunnel though as I thought about the articles claim that coffee grounds kill earthworms. Seriously? Well I checked out the link the website used and it led to a research paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...589?via%3Dihub that showed that coffee grounds can cause worm die offs but that seemed to be related not to a toxin given off but more to the nitrogen release, as the die-offs were decreased by adding carbon sources to the compost. One should also note that the website claimed that the coffee grounds kills " Earthworms " was a bit of generalization. The support article was not about Earth worms, but was about Eisenia fetida which are red wigglers. These are compost worm many of have raised as fish food. These compost worms are not the same as your run of the mill earthworms which dig deep . As any one who raised them knows, they will abandon the worm bins if the media gets too acidic, too hot, or too wet!

Well, I will admit I was half looking forward to coffee being toxic to worms. Why? well caffeine is known to act like a insecticide and does have documented affects on various types of worms. which led me to my most recent rabbit hole. Can caffeine kill external fish worms like gill flukes? Hmmm,... Would that not be a great thing, using coffee as a bath to kill flukes? I haven't found the tunnel entrance yet but I am sure that its somewhere around here. :)

***Disclaimer***, Pease don't be one of the those people that tries everything you read on the internet.. I am not suggesting you take your fish and give them coffee baths or treat with no-Doz ( caffeine pills) . I am just speculating on if someday we can use caffeine for more than its eye-opener affects.

al

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FischAutoTechGarten

Thanks for sharing that with us Al!

After several years of living solely in the USA we are back in Mexico this winter. Brought my mamá with us to escape the cold.

It required a simplification of the hobby, and I took down the FishNook. I now have a 40 breeder in my home in Green Valley, Arizona and a P90 (it was a gift!) in my small Álamos, Sonora casita. The idea is to schlep the plants and fish in a bucket for the 1 day journey every 6 months as we go back and forth. Worked great this fall... no fish losses on the way down at all with a heater and airpump in a 5 gallon bucket, run by a tiny inverter plugged into my Nissan Frontier.

So what does this have to do with your discussion? Well in the USA, I have a fairly decent RO setup, where all of the waste product waters my Grapefruit and Orange Tree. So, very soft water for my planted tanks that feature just tetras, corydoras, shrimp, and ottos. When in Mexico, I don't have the level of automation that I had in the FishNook, so, well I do less water changes and I use purified water purchased from a place down the street. It's about 60 cents for 5 gallons, so a 20 gallon water change on my 48 gallon P90 (it's slightly bigger than my 40 breeder in AZ) cost $2.50 in water.

However, it's not as soft as I'd like, so I've been using dried Almond leaves. Where do I collect the Almond leaves? My neighbors yard. Just dry them out on the stone patio for a month before introducing them to the tank. The tannins are incredible. Just 2 leaves and the P90 looks like a black water setup. Too dark in fact. I've noticed the darkness is restrictig light to the point that ground cover plants are suffering a bit. I've removed the Almond leaves now and will probably do a series of massive water changes over the next few weeks. Am, I introducing 'nasties' into the water using the dried almond leaves? Well, I don't know... But I haven't lost any corydoras (and I have delicate pygmy and dwarf corydoras); they are kind of my canaries in the coalmine...

(I'm editing this comment to make another note... I also have quite a bit of driftwood in this setup. Much more than I have used in the past... Perhaps some of it is not sufficiently aged and is leaching tannins into the water column as well..)

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Peter,
Awesome to hear from you my friend! I am glad that you are doing well! I agree there that the almond leaves are a very good for their blackwater effect but sadly as you know... we can't grow them in the Northeast USA. The oak leaves and bark here do work well also, as oak is loaded with tannins
. Just to make acorns palatable enough to eat you usually have boil them several times to get the tannins out! I don't think you are introducing any nasties in your water with the almond leaves. These are used all the time in the hobby and are fine.

-al

Well my rabbit hole led me back to peat.. I caved and just picked up 3.8 cu ft bale of it at my local agway and ordered nylon stockings .. time to make some peat bombs. That bale was significantly more expensive than the last time I bought it..about $30. But it will last a looong time.

I also did a bit of foraging in my yard for oak leaves.. decided to see how much tannins I could get from them.. more on that latter.

It would be so much more simple to run R/o..but then again.. the cost of digging a new well is good motivation to explore every rabbit hole I can in search of R/O alternatives.

Let me know how the oak leaves work Al, I have tons of oak leaves :)
Pat

Same here on the oak leaves, let me know! Meanwhile, where are you getting your peatmoss? Can I use stuff available at Lowes? Or???

I tried the Fluval peat decades ago it was a hit or miss. Might check out some of those herb stores.







Cliff

Hi Elliot,
My local agway sells canadian sphagnum peat.. thats what I use. As long as its just peat it will be fine.. dont get the ones marketed as potting mix. .no perlite, vermiculite or ferts added.

I bought some knee high nylon stockings and stuffed them with peat.. about 2-3 cups worth. ..tie it off and rinse well with tap water.. place it in an aqua clear 300 hang on back filter and set up on 29 gal breeders and a storage barrel for water changes...technically I dont need the one on the tank since I made a storage system but I have the filters so used them. I am using aged Tap Water as a starting point. My tap water aged comes to a resting pH of 7.5-7.6 (out of tap in winter is 5.8 from CO2).

Any how the peat brings my waters pH down to about 6.6 as the system is now.. which is really ideal for me.

Attachment 134287

As long as I monitor things and stay on my water changes I should be where I want to be. ..

As a reference my other tanks same time period stay close to 7.5
Al