brown leaves for shrimp

[nick11380]

Oak leaves will give you slime if you soak them for a month or two.

I have observed an Oak leaf form holes, decompose into a skeleton and disappear in the soak pail I have sitting in front of a south window. It had to be the bacteria and micro-creatures that ate the leaf since there was nothing in the soak pail but the leaf and a few inches of water.

[Neonshrimp]

And the shrimp love eating these microorganisms. So the more slime the better.

Nick, are these leaves that you just wanted to experiment with or did you leave them in front of the window just by chance. Either way thanks for the good info.

[nick11380]

I keep my soak pail in front of the window so the leaves have direct sun light when soaking.

The articals and posts that I read (when I first found this forum) said that the shrimp eat the microorganisms that grow on the leaves. So I figured that if I soaked the leaves in front of the window the microorganisms would start growing on the leaves as I'm waiting for the leaves to sink and tannins to soak out.

It wasn't an experiment because I didn't really give it much thought at the time. I just put a few leaves in the soak pail and used the ones I needed. There was one leaf left in the soak pail that I didn't need so I just left it there and added water as needed. After a while the leaf slowly disappeared until it was gone.

[Neonshrimp]

I guess the microorganisms broke down the leaf. I would also think that leaving them in direct sunlight will also allow algae to grow on them adding another food source to the mix