JustMe Page For: Amylim
Amy's Ketapang Inc
Welcome!
Ketapang, Sea Almond, Indian Almond or Terminalia catappa leaves are known to most, if not all breeders of blackwater tropical fishes, to be one of the best water conditioners to promote healing and breeding. They are known to have antibacteria and antifungal properties. Bettas are known to be induced to spawn by just putting a few of the leaves into their tub. Fish suffering finrot or injuries (such as spawning injuries) will definitely benefit from having the leaves in their quarantine tub. But they can be used for the usual aquariums too.
Dosage: For bettas, put a 1-2 sq inch piece (or a quarter of a leaf) into each 1 gallons (4 litre) jar. For usual aquarium (with tetras, gouramis, arrowanas, apistos etc), put 2-3 leaves per 25 gallons (100 litres) of water for 14-21 days. Simply put the leaves into the aquarium. After 1-2 days the leaves will be water-logged and sink. Apart from their benefical effects on the water, they will tan the water slightly (to a clear amber) and provide a very natural stream-bottom look to your aquarium. Alternatively, you can boil the leaves to make blackwater extract and dose when you need. Soaking the leaves in a bucket for a week will produce a similar result
About Myself
I am actually a homemaker. I started picking and selling Ketapang leaves initially as a project for my children. You see, we want them to be responsible for their own pets (fish and hamster etc). So we thought of a way for them to earn their own pocket money to buy their pet supplies (of course we do not require them to pay for anything else -- we just want them to learn responsibility in regard to their pets).
Since my husband occassionally collect the Ketapang leaves for breeding his bettas and shrimps; we decided to collect more to sell. We sold quite a lot very cheaply until we realise that others are selling them at much higher price.
Well, to cut the long story short,... my children still collect some of the leaves, and I reimburse them for whatever they collect. But I now do all washing and the quality control.
You may wish to note that our leaves are selective picked from those that have naturally fallen from the trees after turning red in a natural chemical/biological process. These are the leaves that tan the blackwater streams in the forest where bettas are found. We do not harvest fresh leaves from the trees and dry them. If we do that, the leaves will look very nice and indeed easier to obtain; but we doubt their efficacy for aquatic use. My husband will never use such leaves; and we do not know of any tropical fish breeder who will. All the breeders we know who use Ketapang Leaves will only use naturally fallen and dried ones. Indeed, if you try these naturally fallen leaves once, you will probably never go back to freshly harvested leaves! They have an aromatic smell that freshly harvested leaves do not have (it was this sweet smell that first led breeders and herbalists to suspect that they have beneficial properties), and they have a reddish tinge absent from freshly harvested leaves.
But there are comparatively very few such leaves which looks nice and whole and therefore sellable. Out of 100 leaves at the base of a tree there may be only a few of good quality (i.e. not insect eaten, not too bleached, not too fresh, not too badly torn) ones.
The whole process of picking, washing, quality control and packing involves quite a lot of work and time. But it supplements our modest family income.
Thank you for your kind support.
Quality Terminalia catappa Leaves
Indian Almond Leaves
Favorite Links:
Aqualand Fact Sheet on Indian Almond Leaves
DRAK-Aquaristik Info on Terminalia Catappa (German)
Interesting Fact Sheet on the Trees
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