[MsNemoShrimp]

A trustworth source for these is important. You don't wants that are potentially toxic. If you have to boil it or soak it in any way BEFORE adding it to the tank, it pretty much defeats the purpose of them in the first place. Just drop it in and let it do its charm!

 

[MsNemoShrimp]

I would agree totally but you don't know what's out there anymore..... Lots of people are pesticide happy just to kill unwanted bugs or weeds spraying anything in their way. We don't know for sure if store owners actually do the labor for us in boiling sanitizing or destroying any unwanted pesticides or bacteria for us. Now a days I don't trust. I get my own leave from my home or my nursery and do the bidding myself knowingly that I done the procedures myself. We don't know what's out there and should be precautious on what and how we introduce new stuff to our tanks. I worked in a nursery for about 2 years now I see what happens in big agriculture areas wild. State or your city officials spray trees with pesticides to rid of unwanted bugs. U just gonna throw that in your tank?

It's my thoughts cause I been working as a city official for 2 years in a nursery watching how workers work in outdoors. Not what you would expect.

True, you can never be too safe but once you find that source that you get from all the time and tried the same method on all your tanks, just let the leaves be and it'll do your shrimps better. Otherwise all the boiling just makes it another object that micro organisms grow on for shrimps to eat, just like a piece of ceramic for example, doesn't go any further than that. The tannins is what lowers pH and supposedly "helps" with breeding