Dying Plants, Dirty Water...

[gavyshake123]

Hey Guys N Girls

Happy Friday, isn't it fantastic!

right heres my question.

1. i had a piece of Driftwood in my tank, went furry, stunk, turned the water dirty, so i threw it in the garden, but my tank is still a dark brown colour. i removed the wood 6 days ago and the water is still ugly. shall i just do a water change??

2. i have a few plants in my tank, they are slowly fading it to the darkness. would a water change bring them back to life? they are very limp and losing colour!?

i looked this morning and i have a small one lunged molusk on the side of my tank. didnt put him in their so wonder how he got there? he looks like some kind of snail but he moves pretty quick, slight round shape, with a tail!

hopefully you can help guys

Gav Out

 

[Athena]

Do you have fish in this tank yet or is it a fairly new set up that you're cycling? Have you checked your water stats at all?

Anyway, I would do a 50% water change if the water is that bad. Then if that doesn't clear it, do another water change soon. If you can check your stats that would be a help in determining how frequent you need to change the water at this current time. On a healthy tank, weekly or fortnightly water changes are usually recommended (depending on size of tank, stock of fish, plants etc).

I suspect the driftwood released a lot of tannins into the water.

Regards - Athena

 

[gavyshake123]

Do you have fish in this tank yet or is it a fairly new set up that you're cycling? Have you checked your water stats at all?

Anyway, I would do a 50% water change if the water is that bad. Then if that doesn't clear it, do another water change soon. If you can check your stats that would be a help in determining how frequent you need to change the water at this current time. On a healthy tank, weekly or fortnightly water changes are usually recommended (depending on size of tank, stock of fish, plants etc).

I suspect the driftwood released a lot of tannins into the water.

Regards - Athena

its completly fish-less!

i havent really started checking my stats, all i know is that the PH level is reading around 8.2!

thanks

 

[Athena]

All the better if there are no fish otherwise you could have found some illnesses starting up due to bad water quality.

So you're doing a fishless cycle, using ammonia, is that right?

No need to panic then - you can get your tank water back to looking normal and cycled properly before you add any fish.

If you are doing a fishless cycle you will need to be doing water stat checks regularly - do you have a test kit yet? If not, you'll need one - and a liquid test kit is better than strip tests.

There is information on fishless cycling pinned to the forum, if you haven't read it already. It explains everything you need to do before adding any fish.

Athena

ps - forgot to ask - how long did you soak your driftwood for before adding it to your tank?

 

[gavyshake123]

All the better if there are no fish otherwise you could have found some illnesses starting up due to bad water quality.

So you're doing a fishless cycle, using ammonia, is that right?

No need to panic then - you can get your tank water back to looking normal and cycled properly before you add any fish.

If you are doing a fishless cycle you will need to be doing water stat checks regularly - do you have a test kit yet? If not, you'll need one - and a liquid test kit is better than strip tests.

There is information on fishless cycling pinned to the forum, if you haven't read it already. It explains everything you need to do before adding any fish.

Athena

ps - forgot to ask - how long did you soak your driftwood for before adding it to your tank?

thanks for your reply Athena

i had it in soak a few times a day for a week! smelt like eggs when i removed it.

ive been checking the ph regularly but still need to get my ammonia test kit, any other test kits you advise?

 

[oscars r ace]

you will want a nitrite (no2) and nitrate (no3) test kits aswell.

Regards

Tom

 

[gavyshake123]

you will want a nitrite (no2) and nitrate (no3) test kits aswell.

Regards

Tom

thanks guys

 

[greenscooby]

I was advised by my local LFS and members on this forum to get an API FRESHWATER MASTER TEST KIT, it tests for Ph, Ammonia, NitrIte and NitrAte. Most members on here reccomend it when asked about test kits,

Hope this helps,

Scooby.

 

[Athena]

I also use the INTERPET EASY TEST MASTER LIQUID TEST KIT - with good results.

I couldn't believe my luck the first time I bought this kit - woman at the LFS said they had just come in and she didn't have the price list for it. So she said - "Oh, just give me £7.50 for it" - so I did and it wasn't until some weeks later that I discovered the kit usually sells for around £20! Wahay!

Athena

 

[waterdrop]

Along with the test kit, you'll need the right kind of ammonia for the fishless cycle. Have you found that yet? Sorry if we're just forgetting from a previous thread.

Live plants need light. Can you add up the wattages on all bulbs in the tank hood and tell us that along with tank volume? Lights are usually used 8 to 12 hours a day and often on timers so that they are mostly on when you are home.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes the brown water will be tannines from the driftwood most likely, a water change or two will clean it.

if only keeping aquatic plants alive was as easy as just doing a water change

unfortunately it's all a bit more complicated than that, the first thing to do is to identify what plants you have, do you know the names of them? if not can you provide a picture. like different fish species all the different plan species can have different requirements for lighting etc.