Think Fish Keepers Daily News. [2016-2019]

There are many reasons not to keep dying plant leaves. Including the fact that they cannot repair themselves, they will worsen water quality, they look unattractive etc etc.
There are fewer reasons to keep them. Perhaps the shrimp might gain some sustinance from eating the leaves but you may also get more algae in the tank from the nutrients released into the water columns as the leaf rots.
Overall my vote would be to remove them. Leave your shrimp to focus on anybody's and algae etc.

@fcmf sorry about your unfortunate turn of events. Fingers crossed the rest of your crew will do well in your excellent care.

I have just done a water change on both tanks with the help of my husband to carry the buckets. The only complaint was that the old water buckets were too full, and he'd rather carry more buckets with less water in each. He also had chance to water all his garden plants with tank water 

At the moment, it's a matter of water conservation to pour the old tank water over the garden plants, particularly in areas with a hosepipe ban. In winter our garden is usually too water logged to add more.

There is also a school of thought that says we shouldn't pour tank water down the drain because any pathogens in our tanks will end up in the rivers. In the UK, that shouldn't be much of a risk unless we pour it down a surface water drain. The drain that sink and toilet water go down should be thoroughly disinfected at sewage treatment works.


And yes, there will some nitrate in tank water together with any plants fertiliser we add that the plants don't get. Not to mention potassium and phosphate from fish food.

I've been using tank water in my garden. I've got a long hose that I attach to the port on the FX external filters that makes emptying the larger tanks so much easier, and perfect for watering containers and raised beds. As for being better than tap water, I don't know, but the cucumbers I've been growing have done really well on nothing but tank water, and I use the cucumbers (with a few algae wafers stuck in them) to feed the river tank inhabitants, and the plecs in the other tanks. 

Very "circle of life" that!

Our hosepipe ban in the north was cancelled, but that's no excuse for wasting water, so the tank water's been going out in the garden anyway. I just wondered if it was that much better - we're all striving to keep nitrate low, so even 40ppm, which is considered high within the fishkeeping community, is relatively low as a pure number. Glad to hear it's doing wonders for others though!

  Littlefish didn't buy any fish!

I've been to Cardiff this week, and also took the opportunity for a few day trips.
One day trip was to Bristol Aquarium. The soundtrack to the day was Denise saying "no, you can't have a tank that size". 

That ray is called Ravioli, and he was very persistent at feeding time.

All displays were great, and the marine tank was huge.

The sea horse tank was fascinating, especially at feeding time..

And I just get to Beamish - coal mines etc. Not a fish in sight 

Very occasionally, the fish all huddle up together. I thought perhaps one of the nerites was hang-gliding off a floating plant above. However, and linked with another current thread on the issue, I suspect they can smell / detect the sea bass that's being cooked for Mr FCMF's dinner. While cooking is underway in the kitchen, I'm attempting to settle the nerves (or whatever it is) of my gang in the fishtank in the living-room.
 

That's an interesting thought. My main tank's in the kitchen and there's plenty of fish prepared and eaten in it, but I've never seen any of the fish reacting to it. The main surface where I do chopping etc. is at the back of the fish tank, and I've filleted a whole salmon on there before, so there was a strong fishy smell all through the room. Maybe we just read into these things our own opinion and place it on the fish? Given how excited they all get for bloodworms, daphnia and the like, I'm sure they would have been just as interested in a bit of salmon had it been offered!

I'm not sure how good the eyes of a gourami or cory are (especially to see out through the tank), but I'm also not sure they'd recognise something about 10 times their size as being so similar.

That's my justification, anyway. Whatever happened to "Nature, red in tooth and claw"?