I am an extreme newbie (I dont even have fish yet) and this is my first posting. I have followed the forums, read and researched aquarium keeping for the last 6 months because I want to be successful at this hobby. However, my first mistake was to introduce driftwood and corkbark into my new 60-gallon aquarium too soon. I soaked the corkbark for a week and dumped out the brown water (first red flag ignored) and siliconed it to the inside back of my tank. I also soaked two large pieces of mopani driftwood for about a month and a half, dumping out brown water every few days (second red flag ignored). I put ecocomplete substrate in the tank, arranged the driftwood, filled the tank and I guess the combined tannins from the corkbark and the driftwood are too much for my Fluval 305 to filter out (media is bio-maxx and activated carbon). My water is a deep "amazon" brown unless I change out 75% of it every few days. I guess I'll have to live with the color, but my question is: I have 4X55 watt PC tubes of lighting and I read on your forum that PC tubes are 1.35 times brighter than normal fluorescent tubes, so that gives me around 4.9 WPG. With the reduced visibility in the tank, can I keep low light plants happy? They are on order now. I'm also not sure how fish will take to the tinted water. If I had to , I could take out the driftwood, but the corkbark is glued to stay. Sorry for the long-winded narrative, I'll make future ones shorter. Any advice you learned sages can give me will be much appreciated. (haven't cycled the tank yet because of this; I have bio-spyra in the fridge waiting. :help:
Tannins from Driftwood/Corkbark Attacking Newbie Tank
- Thread starter Elfinbrook
- Start date
The tannins won't hurt any thing and eventually they will be gone, it may just take a while in your case maybe a little longer.
You can do big water changes, it wont hurt. Ive heard of people using carbon in their filters to take out tannins, but you have to replace the carbon often as it "fills up" fast.
sometimes wood will leach tannins for years. it won't do your tank or fish any harm. some people actually prefer them for the color (more natural) and the pH reducing properties. if you want to accelerate the tannin-loss, you can try boiling the piece of wood and changing the cooking water whenever it gets too brown and thick.
your PC lights are bright enough that i think your plants will be fine (almost 5 wpg is super-bright). otherwise, water changes and activated carbon will help, as theZoo said.
your PC lights are bright enough that i think your plants will be fine (almost 5 wpg is super-bright). otherwise, water changes and activated carbon will help, as theZoo said.
I have a huge peice of driftwood in my tank and I change my carbon every 2 months or so. Supposedly it reduces the stress of fish but I dont know about the effect on your plants and light. I soaked it for 3 months changing the water every 4/5 days.
Thanks for all the replies....I'll just have to do frequent water changes with my python. I think the tannins will cut down on the 4.5 wpg output so that my low light plants should be OK. My plans were to move my betta, Foo, into the big tank, but not sure I want to put him in such murky looking water. The last time I upset him, he stayed mad for days.
awww. bettas are such cuties. i love how they're feisty. i just love my fish with "personalities" (dojo loaches, dwarf puffers, bettas).Elfinbrook said: