Tanin coloured water

[corky]

My fairly new (about six weeks) 12 gallon tank has been set up with a couple of large pieces of bogwood, conditions in tank are fine, and inhabited by half a dozen Danios, and I hope the bogwood will eventually have a lowering effect on my PH, presently at 8, I would prefer it to be slightly lower, but I don't want to get into chemically altering it. I use 50/50 RO & tap water. GH & kH are both 6 degrees.

The down side to using the bogwood is very brown, tea coloured water.
From other peoples experience how long can I expect this colour leaching to continue? Is it worth using a carbon filter pad, I use a Fluval2 filter. Or after using the carbon filter for a week or so, is the water llikely to return brown?

[Sploke]

Depends on the wood, but anywhere from a month to a year. As more leaches out and is removed by water changes, it will leach out less and less.

Carbon should help to take it out, but you'll need to be replacing it every 2 weeks or so until it stops leaching out.

After mixing your tap water 50/50 with RO your pH is still 8? Do you have just rocks coming out of your faucet?

[corky]

tap water here (Eastern England) is very hard, I actually use 50% RO 30% Ion exchange softened water, which I am aware really replaces the Calcium & Magnesium with Sodium & %20 tap water which is a form of liquid chalk !!!!
This is a little bit of an experiment in an attempt to keep a tidy looking tank without the un-sightly white residue normally associated with using hard water..
The LFS where I get the fish from uses 50% RO 50% tap his fish do OK

I have read a fair amount about ion exchange softened water, ranging from don't use it, which is the LFS guys opinion, to its perfectly fine.

Just the brown water buggs me at present though..

[lazyNode]

Boiling the wood, over and over, changing water till it boils clear can help reduce the tannins.

I'm contemplating using an old kettle to boil my driftwood. Unfortunetly, I dont have a gas stove :( Electric takes so long to bring water to the boil.

[echoofformless]

I never understand why people are so averse to the tea colored waters. Is nature so unattractive?

[Weezer]

We boiled ours in a turkey roaster changeing water as needed until it was farily clear,about 5 hours, and still had tannis for about a day until it got filltered out....:)

[Star_Rider]

I like the look..I keep angels and sicus and they look more natural in this color.

it isn't harmful in low doses and will clear up as you do normal weekly water changes.

[Mofolepo]

I had my tank since the beginning of February so just over two months now and my driftwood is still leeching. I expect to to leech for a while longer, but the color has become less brown as I do each weekly water change.

[fishcatch22]

I love tannins in my 10G tank. it makes it all look so much more natural, and brings out the colors of my rasboras. I actually put bags of green tea in my filter to help add tannins to my water sincemy driftwood doesn't make enough.

[jason311]

Seachem makes a good product called purigen.I use it in my tank with new driftwood and have no problems with tannin.

[echoofformless]

No one should have problems with tannin! Unless they are keeping livebearers or african cichlids.