Instant Amazon

[Mr. Gardener]

A visit to a pet store during my once a month trip to the city gave me
a chance to check out some new, (to me), products, and Instant Amazon
caught my eye. I've seen some of Marc Weiss's ads in aqua magazines,
and the label on this bottle of magic potion is downright verbose, but
it doesn't really tell me a whole lot. It looked like a cure-all tonic
sold by a traveling snake oil salesman. I was looking for a black
water supplement, so I bought a bottle. Now, can someone tell me why
this is better than, say, the old standby Black Water Extract? From
your experience, (I'm thinking of Elaine here, but anyone is welcome
to jump in), how does it affect plant growth, biological filtration,
disease (ich) prevention, spawning readiness,etc.

Mr Gardener, trying something new in his tanks.
(My monthly visit to the city has been to the tobacco store, where I
can provision my pipe tobacco needs for half the price it costs here
in this little coastal village. Now I get to add a pet store visit to
the agenda.)

[Richard Sexton]

Take a bucket. Add water. Add peat moss. Wait.

That's black water extract. You pay for this stuff?

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
Richard Sexton | Mercedes stuff: http://mbz.org
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Home page: http://rs79.vrx.net
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | http://aquaria.net http://killi.net

[Sean]

"Richard Sexton" > wrote in message
...
> Take a bucket. Add water. Add peat moss. Wait.
>
> That's black water extract. You pay for this stuff?


Here where I live there are more peat bogs then rocks. I do the same thing
with what I call "clean peat". I shovel out the rooted stuff and get the
black earth right beneath. Throw a piece of this the size of a grape into a
5 gallon bucket and in a week you have the best/cheapest blackwater extract
going. I'm thinking of bottling it myself and calling it Sean's Snake Soup.
That should fool some people into buying it ;)


Sean

[Mr. Gardener]

On Wed, 08 Feb 2006 22:57:00 GMT, "Sean"
> wrote:

>
>"Richard Sexton" > wrote in message
...
>> Take a bucket. Add water. Add peat moss. Wait.
>>
>> That's black water extract. You pay for this stuff?
>
>
>Here where I live there are more peat bogs then rocks. I do the same thing
>with what I call "clean peat". I shovel out the rooted stuff and get the
>black earth right beneath. Throw a piece of this the size of a grape into a
>5 gallon bucket and in a week you have the best/cheapest blackwater extract
>going. I'm thinking of bottling it myself and calling it Sean's Snake Soup.
>That should fool some people into buying it ;)
>
>
>Sean
>
OK. I'll try asking this question a little differently. A bottle of
peat and whatever else is in it extract is a lot cheaper than a bale
of peat moss. And as a gardener who is concerned about our earth's
natural resources, I use coir instead of peat moss in all of my
gardening projects. I can't really justify ripping a whole bale of
peat moss from depleting peat bogs just to grab a handful for my fish.
So I am looking at the various black water conditioners on the market,
and wondering if they really live up to their claims or if
"blackening" aquarium water with whatever method, including peat,
makes any difference at all in practical use.

Thanks in advance
Mr Gardener

[Rocco Moretti]

Mr. Gardener wrote:
> I can't really justify ripping a whole bale of
> peat moss from depleting peat bogs just to grab a handful for my fish.

I hope you don't like scotch, then. Some/most scotch distilleries use
peat as a fuel source in the roasting/distilling process. I'd wager a
bottle of scotch uses up at least a bale of peat.

Any way, I think encroaching mini-malls are more of a threat to the bogs
than a peat bale here and there. (So if you buy your peat from Walmart,
you're doubly shamed. :)

[Sean]

> OK. I'll try asking this question a little differently. A bottle of
> peat and whatever else is in it extract is a lot cheaper than a bale
> of peat moss.



Not where I live. A bottle of that stuff can run you $5-10, whereas peat is
at the cost of $0 a shovel.



>And as a gardener who is concerned about our earth's
> natural resources, I use coir instead of peat moss in all of my
> gardening projects.



Natural resources? No one said anything about peat moss, "peat" was what we
were asking you to use. Its the sticky black muck that lies beneath the
moss. The moss does not suffer at all, even if you scrape all the muck away
it will grow right over the earth and work its filtering miracle all over
again.





>I can't really justify ripping a whole bale of
>peat moss from depleting peat bogs just to grab a handful for my fish.



And yet you would buy an overpriced bottled of bog water from people that do
it on a much larger scale. No one asked you to destroy half the Florida
wetlands, literally bend over and take a handful, no more. Put a small
amount of this handful (about grape size) into a cut off pair of women's
nylons. Put the small grape sized piece of peat behind your media. Boom!
You have Amazonian water in your tank.


> So I am looking at the various black water conditioners on the market,
> and wondering if they really live up to their claims or if
> "blackening" aquarium water with whatever method, including peat,
> makes any difference at all in practical use.



It makes the water boggy colored for about 3 days (less if you have a really
sweet filter setup) and takes quite a bit of this stuff to maintain the
boggy look. Your looking at cases of this stuff a year if you want to
maintain the look/conditions. I say this from experience as I had bought a
bottle every week when I first set up my Piranha tank. I wanted them to be
as comfortable as possible but it was just not possible money-wise to keep
up buying the stuff. I put a pinch of it into my nylon pouch behind the
filter about once every month...works great.



Sean

[NetMax]

"Mr. Gardener" > wrote in message
...
>A visit to a pet store during my once a month trip to the city gave me
> a chance to check out some new, (to me), products, and Instant Amazon
> caught my eye. I've seen some of Marc Weiss's ads in aqua magazines,
> and the label on this bottle of magic potion is downright verbose, but
> it doesn't really tell me a whole lot. It looked like a cure-all tonic
> sold by a traveling snake oil salesman. I was looking for a black
> water supplement, so I bought a bottle. Now, can someone tell me why
> this is better than, say, the old standby Black Water Extract? From
> your experience, (I'm thinking of Elaine here, but anyone is welcome
> to jump in), how does it affect plant growth, biological filtration,
> disease (ich) prevention, spawning readiness,etc.
>
> Mr Gardener, trying something new in his tanks.
> (My monthly visit to the city has been to the tobacco store, where I
> can provision my pipe tobacco needs for half the price it costs here
> in this little coastal village. Now I get to add a pet store visit to
> the agenda.)


I'm not familiar enough with the products (and I've only toyed with
black-water extracts many years ago), but with limited experience, I've
gotten good results with dried leaves. Seems to be a renewable source ;~),
coloured the water nicely, and if used in the aquarium, many fish like to
dig under the leaf litter.

Asian breeders use Terbang leaves. I've also used them (I bought a large
box). I never took controlled measurements of anything though. Not all
leaves are fish-safe (avoid trees which can winter their leaves as there is
some type of 'glycol' at work), and any tree sap is suspect (so leaves
should be well dried). I've read that oak leaves are good.
--
www.NetMax.tk

[Richard Sexton]

>> Mr Gardener, trying something new in his tanks.
>> (My monthly visit to the city has been to the tobacco store, where I
>> can provision my pipe tobacco needs for half the price it costs here
>> in this little coastal village. Now I get to add a pet store visit to
>> the agenda.)
>
>
>I'm not familiar enough with the products (and I've only toyed with
>black-water extracts many years ago), but with limited experience, I've
>gotten good results with dried leaves. Seems to be a renewable source ;~),
>coloured the water nicely, and if used in the aquarium, many fish like to
>dig under the leaf litter.
>
>Asian breeders use Terbang leaves. I've also used them (I bought a large
>box). I never took controlled measurements of anything though. Not all
>leaves are fish-safe (avoid trees which can winter their leaves as there is
>some type of 'glycol' at work), and any tree sap is suspect (so leaves
>should be well dried). I've read that oak leaves are good.

Old literature suggests oak leaves, willow back, ceder root all
work. Betta poeple use almond leaves which are damn expensive.

The European Cryptocoryne people have fond that without Beech
tree leaf litter they can not grow some plants properly
at all (the acid loving crypts, in the cordata group)

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
Richard Sexton | Mercedes stuff: http://mbz.org
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Home page: http://rs79.vrx.net
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | http://aquaria.net http://killi.net

[Mr. Gardener]

On Thu, 9 Feb 2006 16:25:47 +0000 (UTC), (Richard
Sexton) wrote:

>>> Mr Gardener, trying something new in his tanks.
>>> (My monthly visit to the city has been to the tobacco store, where I
>>> can provision my pipe tobacco needs for half the price it costs here
>>> in this little coastal village. Now I get to add a pet store visit to
>>> the agenda.)
>>
>>
>>I'm not familiar enough with the products (and I've only toyed with
>>black-water extracts many years ago), but with limited experience, I've
>>gotten good results with dried leaves. Seems to be a renewable source ;~),
>>coloured the water nicely, and if used in the aquarium, many fish like to
>>dig under the leaf litter.
>>
>>Asian breeders use Terbang leaves. I've also used them (I bought a large
>>box). I never took controlled measurements of anything though. Not all
>>leaves are fish-safe (avoid trees which can winter their leaves as there is
>>some type of 'glycol' at work), and any tree sap is suspect (so leaves
>>should be well dried). I've read that oak leaves are good.
>
>Old literature suggests oak leaves, willow back, ceder root all
>work. Betta poeple use almond leaves which are damn expensive.
>
>The European Cryptocoryne people have fond that without Beech
>tree leaf litter they can not grow some plants properly
>at all (the acid loving crypts, in the cordata group)

Thanks for the input - I hoped this would not turn into a oh yeah, so
you're a vegetarian but you wear leather boots kind of discussion. The
mention of oak leaves caught my attention. I have a very old banjo
catfish, at least 15 years old, who once had a nice sandpile in his
tank but over the years the sand has sort of mixed with the
surrounding gravel and the closest thing he has for borrowing into is
a huge mass of java fern. I was thinking about building a new burial
ground for him, and though of leaf litter. Over a period of three or
four days, I had a big kettle half filled with oak leaves, trying to
determine if they would sink, or just float around eternally. After
the first day, I decided to boil them - for a few hours - powerful
aroma buy still not sinking to the bottom. Thinking back, however,
I'll bet the tea produced from that experiment would make for some
very nice blackwater. I keep a few large compost bins going for my
gardens, and my eventual plan is to experiment with compost tea as a
blackwater extract, but it will be a couple of months before the snow
goes and the compost thaws and begins cooking again - which is how I
ended up looking at blackwater snake oil at the pet shop. The main
ingredients in my compost is shredded oak leaves and horse pucky.

Mr Gardener - who is not a vegetarian

[Eric]

On Thu, 9 Feb 2006 10:25:47 -0600, Richard Sexton wrote
(in article >):


> Old literature suggests oak leaves, willow back, ceder root all
> work. Betta poeple use almond leaves which are damn expensive.

Almonds are in the same family as peaches and plums. I can get plum leaves
for free. Would they work?

Oaks are common here. Live oak stays green all winter, but I think it does
this without glycols. It just doesn't get very cold here.

-E

[Richard Sexton]

In article obal.net>,
Eric > wrote:
>On Thu, 9 Feb 2006 10:25:47 -0600, Richard Sexton wrote
>(in article >):
>
>> Old literature suggests oak leaves, willow back, ceder root all
>> work. Betta poeple use almond leaves which are damn expensive.
>
>Almonds are in the same family as peaches and plums. I can get plum leaves
>for free. Would they work?

I dunno. Apparantly only $5 a leaf indian ones work but I don't
understand why. I don't know if others would work or not. I should
think nealy anything would work, they all have humic acids in them.

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
Richard Sexton | Mercedes stuff: http://mbz.org
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Home page: http://rs79.vrx.net
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | http://aquaria.net http://killi.net

[Dr Engelbert Buxbaum]

Eric wrote:

> Almonds are in the same family as peaches and plums. I can get plum leaves
> for free. Would they work?

No, this probably means the sea almond Terminalia catappa L.
(Combretaceae), which is related to the white mangrove, Lagencularia
racemosa and common around the Indian ocean. The fruits are edible and
have an almond like flavour (hence the name), the lumber is used by
carpenters and the bark for leather making. The leaves contain tannic
acids, flavonoids and a host of other active compounds (most not
identified), with mildly fungizidal and bacteriostatic effect. A tea
from those leaves can be used by humans internally for intestinal
problems and externally for skin infections. In the aquarium 1-2 leaves
per 100 l (25 gal) are used to prevent mold formation on fish eggs and
to treat skine and slime infections in fishes. They also make a nice
food for shrimps, cat fish and the like, which feed on vegetables. So
largely you can compare the sea almond with tee tree in its effects.

If you find the leaves too expensive, you can grow your own sea almond
tree, provided you can ensure a minimum winter temperature of 15 degrees
Celsius. The tree reaches a hight of about 10 m and is not very
demanding to grow.