Okay I am experimenting again.....

[brewmaster15]

Being a home brewer I am very well aware of the almost medicinal value of plants such as hops and barley.....and I enjoy researching these very important ingredients to brewing.

well I came across some articles on barley and its uses in ponds as an algae control mechanism.. seems its been used for a long time in europe and recently in the usa to control algae growth. WoW I thought ....thats pretty cool...then I read on..and got even more interested. ...Seems the mechanism of action is the decomposition of this plant releases Humic Acid and small but continuous amounts of hydrogen peroxide.

Now I am thinking... Two of the main substances that are reported to be very important in the natural waters of the Amazon system... are tannins, and humic acid.. In our tanks we add tannins by driftwood leeching, and canadian peat moss. Peroxide has antibiotic/antimicrobial properties. Now add in barley and you would have humic acid.... ... The result could be some really great discus water.

so you guessed it... I'm going to try filtering a tank thru peat, and at the same time give barley a try.

Its funny, places like drsfostersmith actually sell the straw processed in mats for the pond...Expensive there..I am getting mine from a pond supply site that is certified organic, and dirty cheap. Lucked out they even sell the seeds..so I figure I'll plant some for the homebrew! ;D

....http://www.naturalsolutionsetc.com/BarleyAbout.htm

any body use this stuff in their ponds?

-al

[April]

COOL BREW!! cant wait for the reports.
there was also that leaf that jim had a link for that was meant to be a bacteria deterrent etc. cant remember the name of it.
we want to hear if your seeds proprogate also.
so there you have it.if it works finally your discus and brewing hobby will be all one!!

[chinoz]

keep us update Brew ;D

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Hey Brew, great idea on the experiment. I'm actually going to setup somewhat of a test also. A good friend is giving me a pond kit he doesn't want anymore and I am going to run some of this stuff in it as it cycles. I spoke to our resident Chemist at work today for about 2 hours (yeah, I was workin hard, huh!) and he really gave me a lot more info to ponder. I was in hog-heaven picking his brain about all kinds of stuff. It was all a blur now and I have to take some time to sort out what all I took in. The dude has forgotten ten times more than I will ever know! Anyway, I think that you will need a strong light source, such as the sun for the UV rays, to create the H2O2 in the water body. He was telling me an interesting thing about our Dolphin habitat at the Mirage hotel. They use an ozone generator to basically fry the organics out of the water as it's filtered and then some sort of Oxygen liberating chamber to blow off excess D.O so that it does not harm the fish upon it's return to the tank. I will definitely hit my buddies up at the habitat to explain this to me and show me the process. It sounds fascinating! He also said that H2O2 does NOT neutralize P.P, but just speeds up the process, as both are Oxidizers. The P.P turns from dark purple to brown to eventually clear(white?) as it is all used up in the oxidizing process. I'm going to order a book from Hach Chemicals(this was the original reason I went to visit him today, as he called me to tell me to come look through the book) that is 1300 pages long and is EXTREMELY COOL and informative. He was even impressed by it and he is a teacher of Chemistry courses! It has pretty much EVERYTHING in it to do with water and it also has pics of all kinds of microscopic stuff (parasites, bacteria, algae, etc.) for ease of ID under scopes. I'll post a report about it when I get a copy. I think I also have a link somewhere discussing the natural cleansing(if you will) properties of humic acids in a biological aspect. I'll try to find it.

April- Was it an Oak leaf?
Steve

[brewmaster15]

Sounds like a great plan Steve!

-al

[yogi]

April unless you are thinking of something else. I remember Jim talking about oak leaves. Some people have used oak leaves for years, it just seems that no one ever talks about using them. I'm not telling anyone to run out and buy these products. Barley straw has been used by pond keepers for a long time. Recently it seems to have grown in popularity. Marc Weiss has a product called keta peat nuggets. It's a mixture of german peat, oak leaves and sweet almond leaves. (the stuff Oliver at Below water sells) Loren at boxlotfish sells aqua humic he used to call it water life. Two of it's main ingredients are humic acid and fulvic acid. Al I look forward to hearing how your experiment goes.

[daninthesand]

Oak leaves.!?!?!

Someone tell me it has practical uses in the discus tank. I seem to remember bring over 65 large garbage bags full to the dump last fall.....I spent a couple of days raking them from my front and back yard.... ::)

[brewmaster15]

Dan,
Oak leave and wood are packed with tannins. Tannins inthe oak is what makes this wood so desireable for wine casks... alot of the dry taste in some red wines is from the tannins that leech in the wine( same goes for oak casks used in whiskey barrels.

Home brew supplies also sell oak chips to add tannins to beer requiring a drier taste.

-al

[daninthesand]

Yes, some of my favoiurite reds are oak aged. My brother in law spends huge sums of money to purchase oak barrels for use in his wine making hobby. He's commented a few times he prefers the low pH he can achieve with oak aging ~ Ph3 to 4

Maybe there's a common link there somewhere. I can't wait till fall.......I better save some culls for experimentation.......

Last summer I had a plastic 55 gallon drum that sat ouside for a while (a future water holding tank)that i filled with water to leach out any left over contents from the plastic. Well i kinda forgot about it, there under the OAK tree. Come autumn, it had more than a few oak leaves in it. Well the water looked a lot like the tea stained peat waters I've seen in peoples tanks I remeber thinking to myself, "hhmmmmmmm i wonder what the pH of this is....?"

My city is a virtual forest of oak trees....

Daniel

[FischAutoTechGarten]

I always ask my neighbors to bring their OAK leaves (read..NOT their Sumac or Maple) and pine needles over to my compost pile. The following year I use it to mulch my Azaleas and Rhododendrons. It's the acids I'm after.

[O]

Using oak driftwood or wood in the tank would be a good thing then, right?

O.

[wall_o_fish]

Al and Company --

If you're interested in the humic acid/tannic acid thing, you may be interested in some of Loren's thoughts in it. Loren is the guy in West Palm Beach, Florida who runs boxlotfish. I visited him over christmas, and he's put a lot of research/thought into the use of humic acid in aquariums. When i last spoke with him, he was quite willing to give me free samples of his stuff he's made called "Aquahumic" on the condition that you share your results with him. I never did use the stuff, since I wasn't into large time investments for my tanks at the time (I was a FT student). But he's a heckuva nice guy & willing to talk with people about it.

His site is: www.boxlotfish.com

scott

[Jason]

I use white peat(candian), black peat(sera peat pellets) and oak leaves. I want to try almond leaves but finding a source is difficult, I think I have to plant my own tree!

Alot of asian hatcheries use almond leaf, not so much for discus I was told, they did use it in the early days for discus because the european secret was peat moss and it wasn't cost effective to import the stuff, its still used for teras and other soft water fishes.

keep going AL! maybe I'll try it too!

btw, I've used a few Hach products, really good quality but$$$$$

[Smokey]

Sounds like we may have a 3-way experiment.

I have been using peat to condition the water for my discus, 100%. I am very happy with the water and so are my discus.

I have heard about the great effects of using oak. In countires where canadian peat is not accessable!

Looking forward to the experiment .. and what happens.

Dan - collect those leaves - they may be worth their weight in discus.

Smokey

[henryD]

Funny this should come up. When I was on vacation we walk through the Ding Darling Wildlife refugee. It was surrounded by Red Mango tree. The water was crystal clear except for the little bit of redness to the water. I was wondering if discus would do well in that type of water. I remember seeing some discus habitat pictures and imagined it looks very similar to it. I was kicking myself for not having carried a test kit with me. (My wife thought I was nuts for even thinking of it). I wonder if mango leaves would exhibit similar chemical properities? They were plentiful in Florida. I wished I had bought some back with me. Maybe we can get some of the Floridian on the boards to send us some to do experiments with.

Does anyone know if the mango tree in brazil are the same type? Maybe they are black mango instead of red? I think black are more suited for freshwater while red does better in salt.

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
I went to chat with my friend again today(couldn't resist) about some more stuff. He wanted to show me another book called "Handbook of Wastewater Organisms". It was also really cool and very informative. Jason, since I work for a large hotel that buys lots of stuff from Hach, I have my own account with them due to our buyers knowing the reps there. Their stuff is pricey, but it is the top of the line in water testing equip, etc. I've purchased Iron, Co2 & D.O test kits from them and they are very accurate. I have a blast fiddling around with them. This book I'm ordering is incredible. I should learn a lot of stuff from it for years to come. For example, it teaches the reader how to test for EVERYTHING having to do with water and the interference situations that might occur during those tests, as well as a ton of other technical stuff. I'm like a kid in a candy store when I go down to our water treatment plant and hang out with this dude. We have a large facility, which handles all the water coming and going from our hotel(Treasure Island) and our sister hotel next door(Mirage). You should see the R/O membranes we receive every couple months for the units down there. The things are friggin huge! Anyway, I can't wait to get my pond going. I think I'm gonna try to set it up tomorrow. I asked him about the H2O2 possibility with the Barley straw, but he had never heard of a reaction like that occurring. My friend did mention that he has another book at home that lists the various algaes and their ideal pH ranges to grow in and said that the Barley might just be creating an acidic environment that certain algaes do not grow in. He's going to bring the book into work next week so I can borrow it(and photocopy it) ;) I told him about my tank pH and the Amazon water where discus come from that is really low in some places. He said that some of those places with EXTREMELY LOW pH's could melt a penny :o Right now my tank sits around the 4.4 range(elec. test) and I RARELY ever see algae growing unless it's been a long time between W/C's. I guess it does play a role in algal growth. My discus are very vibrant and healthy.

Steve

P.S Hey Smokey, is that sig pic one of you collecting water aging barrels? ;D

[CARY_GLdiscus]

Brew Good Job!

And Steve Great Info,


I run my r/o Tap water drip Thur peat before it hits My Storage
Bins. IME they breed and do fine in plain tap but discus pairs get boared with the same old thing.

When My pairs fall off of Breeding I use Peat When They Fall Off breeding Again I go back to tap!

HTH
Cary Gld!

[April]

hmmmmm Cary.....so thats kinda like getting too married and bored? so a bit of extra red lights or something? lol.
well mine are bored right now...think they want the summer off. not sure i could dare try peat in my water.

[Jason]

like I always say peat, ro, rain water or whatever. everything is just a tool, use it at the right time and it does the job, use it till it stops working, then use another tool to get them going again.

cause its all about enviromental stimulation

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Jason, have you been chatting with "Mother Nature" again ;D She told me she wasn't gonna share that info(enviro stimulus) with anyone else, darn it. ;) I AGREE TOTALLY!


Steve

[Denny]

Oak chips huh?

White oak or red oak? I have a lifetime supply of oak chips laying around at all times lol

I am assuming that white oak is preferable to red oak for this. Let me know and I will try it from my end. would chips would also be an easier media than peat to put in a power filter.

[Jason]

Steve could you please e-mail or fax me that algae info, I'm goofing around with an idea I have for a hybrid trickle/algae filter.

why don't we take this experiment one step further and try to base a filter media on the info gathered about what kind of trees, plants, and other stuff that make up the leaf litter on the forrest floor and river bed.

I guess that's what I've been trying to do already by mixing different peats and oak leaves, a more acurate representation would be neat thought like 30% ceder bark, 30% pine needles, etc,etc.

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Jason, when I get the book and make copies, I will send you a copy.

Steve