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Indian Almond Leaves (Green vs Brown)

hello Marc,

This is off topic of your auction.

I'm reading your website to the part where you talk about Indian Almond Leave. I experienced with both maturely brown dried leaves that fall down versus the hand pick green leaves and then dried.

I went back to Vietnam last Chinese new year in February, there are 10 of thousands IAL trees all over Da Nang city--people plant AIL tree for shade...

February is the time in VN when IA tree shed all of its leaves. I collect a punch of aged brown leaves to bring back to the US. After a month, the newly grow leaves seem mature enough, I picked a punch and dried it. I brought both back to the US.

I used them for my spawn tank and betta jars. I found that aged brown dried leaves works better than the hand picked green dried leave! I don't know how the bettas think, but I like the brown dried leave better.

Brown leave gives clear-darker-tea-color water. While the green dried gives dirty-lighter-tea-color water.
When I was prepare aged my water, I tested the leaves. I put 3 brown dried leaves into a 5gal white bucket, and 3 green dried leaves into the other 5gal white bucket.

After 3 days, the brown dried leave bucket was very clear tea color water. It was so clear that I can see the bottom of the of the bucket. While the green dried leaves bucket's water look very dirty. The water is tea color cloud. I couldn't to see the bottom of the bucket. on the water surface, there was thin layer like scum, look like oil. I take one leave out of each bucket to compare. The brown fried leave was hard and strong, while the green dried leave felt like it was under water for few months--it can tear easily.

One more thing, the nature matured dried brown leave is a reddish color, while the hand pick green leaves dried color green-gray dirt color--not brown at all.

it's late, good bye now.

Tri Le

Reply:

Yes, I agree that brown leaves are much better than dried green leaves. They have more tannins, turn the water brown better and are more acidic.
I'm sure you know that when you pick green leaves, they have sticky white sap. Even after drying, the sap, although dry, still stays in the leaves. When you put this in water, the sap comes out of the leaves and dirties the water and forms scum on the surface.
I don't want to talk about science too much, but yes the cellulose in brown leaves are much stronger than green leaves and are better under water because they don't break down or tear too fast.

Use dried brown leaves.. not green ones!

good luck

Marc

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Adjusting pH - IAL / Peat Combo

Submitted by mathao0069 via Comment Form:

on your section of ph lowering, i found out that if you use ial and peat together u can acheive a ph of 4.5 to 5.5 without all the ph up and ph down stuff they sell at the store's, you could add this to the ph section ig you want to, cant wait till you fully finish your website.

Reply:

Hi Mathao0069. Very often a combination of methods may produce the best results for adjusting pH. Because water parameters and chemistry difer from place to place, there is no one "best" way that works for everyone. Thanks for the Tip!

Marc

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