View Full Version : Tea with the the Tetras
wetmanNY
12-12-2002, 12:39 PM
Since I'm all out of peat til I make a trek down to the wholesale florist district, I decided to make a nice cuppa tea for the tetras this morning. (I know, but I've already done water changes.)
Twining's Earl Grey, I thought. That's nicer than a tincture of Melaleuca alternifolia. "An unusual blend of scented Oriental teas producing a delicate liquor of exceptional fragrance much appreciated in all parts of the world" Twinings claim on the box. Perhaps it will be appreciated in my Amazon basin.
I boiled the water and let a teabag steep until it was quite cold. Then I ladled golden cupfuls ("no cream, please") into my pencilfish, my "Amazon" mix, and the Q tank which currently has young Rams and Chilodus punctatus headstanders.
It may not be an "Amazon-in-a-Jar" blackwater mix bought at the LFS, but these tannins are endorsed by the present (sixth) Earl Grey.
So what did you do for your fish today?
Does the caffeine in the tea mix do anything for your fishies?
That's why I like Earl Grey!
wetmanNY
12-12-2002, 12:44 PM
You mean there's no caffeine in Melafix?
Then why do they call it Melfix eh?
beviking
12-12-2002, 12:47 PM
Maybe I just don't know enough about peat and tea but are you sure "somewhat skeptical" shouldn't be "just plain nutty"? ;) :D :confused: :eek: :rolleyes:
Hmm, here you go again wetman. Starting up another controversy. We've got enough problems here comparing types of filtration, whether to use carbon or not, and deciding if salt is any good for most fish. And now you're recommending Earl Grey. Sheesh, don't you know that Constant Comment is THE tea of choice for tetras.
I thought everyone knew that...
LOL
Val
Anton Wernher
12-12-2002, 12:52 PM
Tetras down here in the south love liptons ice tea (sweet). :)
Jeremy S
12-12-2002, 1:04 PM
Your tetras wont be able to sleep tonight with all that caffeine. :D
wetmanNY
12-12-2002, 1:20 PM
Remember, tea is a shrub closely related to Camellia. Or is a Camellia... It's a dry leaf after all, like the beech leaves lying on the gravel in there already...
WWotS, I found a great set of 1998-1999 posts archived at www.thekrib.com discussing dry leaves in Apisto tanks: http://www.thekrib.com/Apisto/tank-leaves-plants.html
Maybe I'm less skeptical than usual today...
Pootspete
12-12-2002, 1:26 PM
Wow, I learned something today!
wetmanNY
12-12-2002, 2:11 PM
Now, Josh asks in a concurrent thread, What's the idea behind peat filtering? How does it change the chemistry of the tank... is that just acidic?
Well, in spite of my foolishness, what peat and tea and oak leaves all have in common is that they leach tannins into the water... tannins and other humic substances. Besides coloring the water, humic substances act as natural chelators, detoxifying heavy metals and making some of them available to plants. They bind calcium and magnesium ions, thus they have a softening effect. And the same ion-exchangeprocess that softens the water somewhat, also tends to lower the pH.
Now I could be getting similar results from passing boiling water through peat (but I'm all out). Or I could go out in the cold and purchase "Instant Amazon" and"Amazon Vital" from Marc Weiss...
...but hey! Lord Grey is an earl, and Marc Weiss isn't even a viscount!
OrionGirl
12-12-2002, 2:28 PM
Oh, I am SO saddened to see you pandering to royalty...
Thanks for providing yet another item in the list of things that make sense after they've been pointed out...
;)
Would not a piece of mopani wood have the same effect??
Kuhli
Thinking about the last cup of Earl Grey that I personally consumed, it had a slightly oily surface which I presumed to be part of the mystic Bergamot oil flavoring component. I wouldn't expect the oil to have any adverse effects on your tanks (who knows what other various and sundry oils and fats wind up in our tanks just by using commercially prepared foods!), but it is something that you might want to bear in mind in the next time that the tetras are treated to tea.
wetmanNY
12-12-2002, 3:42 PM
Amy, I hadn't thought of that oil of bergamot that makes Earl Grey a bit dainty-tasting. It's a citrus zest, Citrus aurantiacum and it's packing a whole raft of flavonoids, according to this Dept. of Agriculture document: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/np/phenolics/ap2/ca-c.htm
An unfermented Japanese green tea would have make a better choice for the tetras, I now find... and there's a health-lore groundswell building about its anti-cancer and bacteriocidal benefits... maybe I should have a couple of sips myself...
Kuhli, yes indeed! But wood only very slowly leaches tannins and polyphenols too. You know what a dark tea you can get by boiling the bogwood.. But no one is doing serious chemistry lab analysis of bogwood tea or oakleaf tea... just not the same market for the results I guess...
OrionGirl
12-12-2002, 4:00 PM
Flavonoids are found in almost all higher plants...Not sure they would cause any problem? The most I could find suggested that certain types, in high concentrations, could inhibit the growth of specific antibiotic resistant bacteria. They are classed as a water soluable plant pigment--similar to tannins. Both are phenols...
I am pretty sure that those lovely leaves you have floating in your tank have flavonoids as well, so unless one of the specific types is offensive, I don't see the issue?
wetmanNY
12-12-2002, 4:42 PM
Oh no, OrionGirl, I didn't mean to suggest any negative connotations to flavonoids, which are linked with anti-oxidant and antibacterial virtues. Flavonoids are a group of polyphenols, I'm finding out, and they include Lignins (which I didn't know til today turn up also in nuts and the husks of whole grain cereals), Proanthocyanins and Anthocyanins (giving color to fruits and vegetables), Isoflavones, Quercetin (isolated first from oak but in grapes and wine too), Hesperidins in citrus, such as Earl Grey's bergamot oil, and for us especially the Catechins and Tannins found in the tea I served to the Tetras...
Why do softwater fish flourish in waters with humic substances and polyphenolics, including these flavonoids, besides thegeneral water-softening etc? There are direct effects on egg membranes I remember. Bactericidal efffects might be direct. I'm out of my depth here, for sure...
OrionGirl
12-12-2002, 5:05 PM
Okay--that was what I was seeing as well, and didn't see anything to indicate that there was anything in the tea that might be toxic, or even have anegative impact. Seems like the primary difference between using tea and peat would be that tea would result in more color change more quickly (assuming the tea is steeped and the peat is not) since the warmer temp would break down and release the color pigments mroe rapidly.
To answer why some fish thrive in those conditions would require slogging through some evolutionary pathways, I'm afraid. I do so wish Mr. S. J. Gould were still around--this sounds like his cup of tea.
:)
wetmanNY
12-12-2002, 5:18 PM
A full cup of golden-orange strong-brewed Earl Grey tea in 10 gallons: I can't detect any color tonight. Even siphoned off into a white bucket...
And BTW, I put the used teabag right in the h.o.t. filter!
OrionGirl
12-12-2002, 5:45 PM
Makes sense--cooler temps will slow down the release of color pigments. How do they process the tea when bagging? Just wondering if they do anything that would reduce the color-causing pigments.
Or, if the color pigments from tea break down more quickly than those from unprocessed leaves and wood?
wetmanNY
12-13-2002, 2:14 PM
OrionGirl, black tea like Earl Grey is left to wither and ferment, but it's not otherwise processed (or I'd have been wary about tea for the tetras in the first place.
Green tea isn't even fermented: http://www.apotoftea.com/process.html
Next time I'm out of peat, it'll be a cuppa green Japanese tea...
Tiger15
12-13-2002, 3:07 PM
Green Tea is more natural than black tea because it doesn't contain caffein, never fermented, and won't stain the water as dark. There are hundred of green tea varieties and some are claimed to have certain medicinal effect. Many are packaged in tea bags and so they can be adminstered with the right dosage with no mess. They will lower the pH to around 4 and is close to many black water condition. If I were to keep black water fish, I will certaubkt explore tea as a simpler alternative to peat or RO filtration.
Jeremy S
12-13-2002, 3:14 PM
Originally posted by Tiger15
Green Tea is more natural than black tea because it doesn't contain caffein
Green tea has just as much and sometimes even more caffeine then black tea.
Tiger15
12-13-2002, 3:42 PM
Wrong, Green Tea has much less caffeine than black tea, ut not zero. Check this out
http://www.cuisinenet.com/digest/ingred/tea/tea_caffeine.shtml
Since we don't brew tea in fish tank, I don't know how much caffein tea will release.
"natural" is such a slippery concept. I hate it when people dub a chemical that is commonly found in nature as "unnatural" because it may be associated with certain health effects. :mad:
Caffeine is found in nature all the time. Standard black teas and their variations (such as Earl Grey) come with caffeine; it is not added to the product at any time in processing. In fact if you find a black tea that claims to be de-caffeinated, it means that the tea has been subjected to an extra process step as described in http://www.howstuffworks.com/question480.htm Depending on the process used, that would seem to me to be pretty unnatural.
And now I'll get off my soap box.
Jeremy S
12-13-2002, 4:52 PM
Originally posted by Tiger15
Wrong, Green Tea has much less caffeine than black tea, ut not zero.
I guess I was wrong. :o
wetmanNY
12-13-2002, 5:01 PM
My 'Net research (and thanks for opening these questions, gang) is telling me that caffeine, an alkaloid, is not in fact very soluble.Apparently I released more caffeine when I poured boiling water on the teabagyesterday morning than I have released from the "used" teabag that has sat in the h.o.t. filter since then. What are leaching into the water are tannins and humic acids and other polyphenols, similar to substances leaching slowly from the beech-leaf litter.
The pencilfishes are working up to another spawning.
If I went out to buy unfermented green tea just for the fishes, that would be expensive. But if when I make green tea for myself, I were to drop the used teabag in the h.o.t. filter of one of my "blackwater" tetra tanks instead of throwing it out... hmm...
Grand baroque.
I can foresee whole cults dveloping from this - one flavor vs. the other, bag vs. loose, hot-steep vs. tank filter. I am not ready for this. :rolleyes:
Jeremy S
12-13-2002, 6:01 PM
Originally posted by wetmanNY
The pencilfishes are working up to another spawning.
Do you think the tea works better than peat?
wetmanNY
12-13-2002, 7:37 PM
No. I can't judge. I did it as a substitute for peat. Osmunda fiber (orchid-grower's medium) also releases a lot of strong-colored and aromatic tannins when you pour boiling water over it. Oak leaves too. There are lots of sources for these polyphenols.
RTR is right, of course... the "green tea polyphenol" cult at health websites does get baroque.
Harry Tolen
12-13-2002, 7:54 PM
I have never liked Earl Grey tea, precisely because of the oil of bergamot component. I would think that an earthy fermented tea like Pu Erh might give the desired color and tannic benefits, however. For maximum effect, I would use the fresh leaves (no fannings or used teabags please) in a media bag in the filter.