Driftwood Turning Water Very Red

[jeej]

It had already been thoroughly cleaned, but I whacked a great big piece of driftwood in my 65USgal tank today and the water has turned a real dramatic red.

I'm also in the middle of doing a fishless cycle.

Do I need to worry about my bright red water? Is it such a bad thing?

If someone could let me know, that would be great.

 

[jennybugs]

The redness is caused by tanins leaching out of the wood. As long as it's not too concentrated, lots of fish will like tanin stained water.

Carbon can be used to remove the tanins if not liked, and soaking/boiling wood for a reasonable amount of time before putting in a tank will reduce the leaching somewhat. Regular water changes will keep the concentration to an acceptable level, but if you think it's leaching a bit too much, remove the wood and soak in hot dechlorinated water if you can't find a pot big enough to boil it in. Change the water regularly until the leaching is less pronounced.

I have bog wood in several of my tanks and my big community tank has yellow water all the time from my two bits of wood. The fish are all well and healthy and my tea coloured water doesn;t worry me at all...in fact it goes towards creating a nice biotope feel and I am going to add more wood in the new year along with a new look for the tank

 

[jeej]

The redness is caused by tanins leaching out of the wood. As long as it's not too concentrated, lots of fish will like tanin stained water.

Carbon can be used to remove the tanins if not liked, and soaking/boiling wood for a reasonable amount of time before putting in a tank will reduce the leaching somewhat. Regular water changes will keep the concentration to an acceptable level, but if you think it's leaching a bit too much, remove the wood and soak in hot dechlorinated water if you can't find a pot big enough to boil it in. Change the water regularly until the leaching is less pronounced.

I have bog wood in several of my tanks and my big community tank has yellow water all the time from my two bits of wood. The fish are all well and healthy and my tea coloured water doesn;t worry me at all...in fact it goes towards creating a nice biotope feel and I am going to add more wood in the new year along with a new look for the tank

Thanks for the reply.

I'll do a 30% water change tomorrow and see how I go.

I'd quite like to have a slight red or yellow look to the water in the end, but right now it looks like Tizer, so I just wanted to know if it was particularly bad to leave it like that. As I said, I'm in the middle of a fishless cycle, so there isn't even any fish in there to harm at the moment.

 

[Straydum]

on top of that you might wanna add a carbon filter too while you're still cycling

 

[jeej]

Yeah one of the trays in my Aqua One 1200 Canister Filter does have carbon in it.

 

[fish-aholic]

Filter floss seems to help people out tremendously.