my driftwood didnt soak enough...

[petitericeball]

and my tank water is yellow now so i was wondering if this was bad for the fish or will it clear up after awhile how many water changes will it take to chear the water up it was like soaking for like 5 days and then it was power washed with the power washer thingy

 

[crimsontsavo]

Well.

You can add charcoal to your filter and that should help the process along.
Depending on the wood and the kind of fish you have- it shouldnt hurt them.
Do water changes as well.

 

[cutechic]

I think some fish actually do better in yellow/ brown water.

 

[petitericeball]

lol but will it clear over time?? wont the charcoal do more bad then good

you mean the coal you put in a grill or charred wood...

 

[thecichlidaddict]

Depending what kind of wood it is it can take a couple of weeks, or a couple of years to stop leeching tannins into the water. It doesn't have any negetive effect on the fish.

 

[franky]

As mentioned, bepending what type of wood it is, is make lead color in to the water for days/weeks. one quick fix ive used is to either add a cardon pad to the filter, or if you filter does not acomidate this then buy a carbon bag, thats really ment for a filter and place it in the tank, this will absorb all the colorant out of the water for you.

 

[petitericeball]

i dont really know what kind of wood it is i found it outside 8P seriously when you guys said driftwood i thought you meant the ones you actually find so i went down to my creek and brought back a couple pieces lol it was funny this girl in my class the teacher told her to write gullible 15x because she was and she didnt really have to hahahahahaha... oh back to the point so i dont know and the media i already have that came with my penguin had some carbon in it but its on my other tank... and i have some carbon because it came with the like 4 pack of medias... okay

 

[Aquabach]

i dont really know what kind of wood it is i found it outside seriously when you guys said driftwood i thought you meant the ones you actually find so i went down to my creek and brought back a couple pieces ...

IF it isn't a hard wood it will deteriote and always produce the yellow/brown water. It will even get worse as it rots, again if it is a soft wood. If it is a hardwood, it should have been boiled for 15 minutes and soaked in water to help waterlog it and leach the tannins out. The tanins is what is probably causing your water to color. You are supposed to boil it to kill any parasites or bacteria as well as help leach the tannins and help waterlog it. Since it's been in your tank awhile already, I wouldn't worry about it the risk of bacteria,parasites, and pollution anymore. If it hasn't killed them yet I don't think it will.

Generally the tannins are not harmful and in fact many fish prefer it. It looks bad though.
Carbon should clean it out if not it should go away with your regular water changes in about a month.
If it doesn't, I'd say remove it. Or if you start seeing a fungus grow on it or it gets worse I'd get rid of it.

 

[guppymonkey]

Depending on the size of the driftwood you can boil it to get rid of a lot of of the tannins that case the yellowing effect to the water. I have done this in a big lobster pot and boiled the wood for a couple hours adding water as needed. If you don't mind boiling wood in your favorite lobster pot this isn't a bad solution! LOL