Help, rust coloured water...

ChelseaSkinGirl

ChelseaSkinGirl

AC Members
May 17, 2002
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Orlando, FL
My water in my aquarium is very red. It's an established aquarium, and the water's been this colour for over a year. I added some laterite (about a year ago) and I'm pretty sure that's the problem. I've tried doing huge water changes, charcoal, everything short of adding those drop to clear the water up. Anyone have any ideas?


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It could well be the laterite. How well was it rinsed?

My tank was like that on two occasions, it is just clearing from the second. The first one was from the home made planting substrate I put in before adding my gravel on top. I posted here about it and the suggestions were: Plant heavily, don't disturb the gravel, frequent water changes and most effective, wait for a naturally occuring bacteria to begin to take hold of the stuff in the water and settle. I tried the clarifying drops and they didn't do a thing. What might help would be to add a litre of water from a well established planted tank that doesn't get diatom filtered.

The other thing it might be is tannins from the driftwood, which was the case in my second batch of tea in my tank ;) Again, frequent water changes overcame that problem.


HTH :)
 
The laterite was well rinsed, or I thought so anyways, the water was running off clear for around 10 minutes. It's not the driftwood, that was in there for over a 6 months with no colour changes to the water (and soaked in a bathtub for 3 months and then baked in the oven). There are no live plants in there anymore. I think the colour change started about 2 months after the laterite was added and has just gotten worse. I've tryed HUGE water changes (as in 40 gallons in a 55 gallon tank) before and they only helped for a few days then the colour came back.
 
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I think you are probably right that it is the laterite. It doesn't seem like rinsing really removes the problem, since the water color comes from a continual reaction from the iron. So it would be like rinsing and sanding a handful of rusty nails until the rust disappeared... that doesn't mean they wouldn't rust again later on. I found this website on laterite (I don't have personal experience with it so take my comments with a grain of salt).

Laterite

It recommends dividing your aquarium gravel into thirds and mixing the laterite you plan to use into 1/3rd of the gravel, then using that as the first layer. Then you put the other 2/3rds of gravel over the top to keep the laterite contained. It doesn't seem to have a specification of how much regular gravel you should be dividing in order to accomplish this though, or how much laterite to mix with the first 1/3rd. Maybe someone more experienced or someone in the plant section could help you with this.

Short of that I would suggest a different substrate.
 
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Yes..it seems that the only real solution here would be to remove your entire substrate and replace it with some flourite and/or new gravel.
 
Why not go with a 1/2" layer of well rinsed gravel on top of the laterite? Also, give the quart of water from a well established planted tank a try.
 
If all else fails, you could have one heckofa blackwater tank there!

Seriously though, I've used unwashed laterite and flourite in most of my tanks and they clear up with a coupla days normally, same with bogwood. Could there be anything else adding to the colour?
 
Yes..it seems that the only real solution here would be to remove your entire substrate and replace it with some flourite and/or new gravel.

I can't imagine removing the entire substrate without tearing down the entire tank and starting over:( .

Could there be anything else adding to the colour?

I'm not sure, so here's EVERYTHING in the tank..

It's a 55 gallon tank, about 1" of sand/laterite mix (I'm pretty sure I added 110oz. of laterite), about 2 handfuls of gravel from an old tank (from when I first started to cycle this one), 2 very large pieces of driftwood, some fake plants (that were added less than a week ago with no colour change to the water), 5 clown loaches, 5 Australian rainbow fish. Filtered with a Magnum 350 Deluxe and an Aquaclear 300.

Also, give the quart of water from a well established planted tank a try.

I no longer have any planted tanks, after I came back from vacation I found that the person that was supposed to take care of my tanks hadn't. So after seeing over $400 worth of dead plants, I gave up. Which is also why I haven't posted here in almost a year.


Which makes me wonder....


All of the plants died in every one of my tanks about a year ago. Which is about the same time as the water turned red.... Coincidence???? Of course none of my other tanks turned this colour or any color at all and the levels on all of the tanks were fine. When I say that the plants died, I meant they turned kind of brown, still alive, just not in my opinion worth saving, so they were all trashed.
 
Well, are there any aquarium clubs that you could contact for the water?

Also, I would imagine you still have all the lights etc for plants. You could always grow a cheap, fast growing plant to fill your tank.

If you feel that the lack of plants is causing some kind of imbalance, post the question in the planted forum.

*edit* - Could it be that laterite needs plants to absorb the excess that causes water staining?
 
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I did a huge water change (again :( ) of 40 gallons about 5 hours ago. I tried to suck up all of the laterite that I could and got a good amount of it out. The water is pretty clear right now, we'll see how long it lasts....

I think I'm gonna go to the store today to get some plants and see if that makes much of a difference...
 
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