Stained Water

[shahdi]

i have many pieces of bog wood in my tank which has stained the water. what is the best way to clear up the water.

 

[paul-discus]

i have many pieces of bog wood in my tank which has stained the water. what is the best way to clear up the water.

Regular water changes or take out the wood and boil it to remove some of the tannins

 

[ASD]

Placing carbon in the filter will also help.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Placing carbon in the filter will also help.

carbon in the filter will only remove tannines that are already in the water, the wood will continue leaching and will muck the water up straight away.

take the wood out, add carbon to your filter, soak the wood in a bucket of water changing the water every day until it's left clear.

 

[sharkbaitwoohaha]

i love the colour it turns my tank water i think it makes it look really natural. its also a pain in the ass to stop it from happeneing. soaking the wood works a bit but we soaked some in the shop for about 3 days, changing the water everyday and it still turned the bloody water brown. looked awesome though

 

[SuperColey1]

I agree, when I get a new piece of bogwood. I wash it. leave it in a bucket of water 24 hours, then put it in the tank.

So what if you get a sepia coloured tank for a few weeks. After a month with your usual water changes it starts to get back to normal, and like the poster above. I like the natural look.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Water changes in the tank and soaking the wood will help remove the tannins- the length of time bogwood leaks out tannins for varies greatly, a lot comes down to the size of the individual peices of wood. I got two very hefty peices of bogwood (about 3ft long each) 3 months ago for my goldfish tank and they are still staining the water on a regular basis.
However there's nothing wrong with tannins on the other hand, they can even be benneficial for many fish (particularly for a lot of types of catfish) as tannins have mild antibiotic effects on the water .

 

[Griz]

i have many pieces of bog wood in my tank which has stained the water. what is the best way to clear up the water.

Why would you want to do that? Seriously, I love the look.

 

[three-fingers]

Yeah same here, though my bog wood isn't releasing much tannins anymore .

 

[shahdi]

thaks all for the comments. i do like the colour of the tannin water but it gotten really bad/dark. so i will keep up the water changes and try to get a carbon fibire pad for my external filter. thanks again

 

[Vicky99]

I have a piece of mopani wood in my community tank - I soaked it for 24 hours and had no trouble with tannins leaching out.

I have another bit in my 6 gal though which I soaked and was still leaching so I boiled it - twice and soaked overnight again and 3 months later it's still staining the water. I manage to keep it pretty clear though with water changes. I wouldn't mind it in the community tank, but since the 6 gal is intended for a Betta I want clear water so as to see it's colours!!

 

[confusion]

If you don't want the tannis in, then you have to do a lot of pre-soaking. That will also help with making sure it stays at the bottom of your tank when you're ready to put it in. I got some grapewood and it took nearly a month of every other day water changes in the bucket for all of the tannis to be gone. Even now, one of the pieces is turning one of my tanks a yellow color despite all that effort. Can't imagine what it would have been like without all the pre-soaking.

 

[smmetz]

out of topic question - but does wood in the tank every rot or anything like that? I just got 4 pieces of it to put in my tanks, and I am wondering how long they last. I don't remember what kind of wood it was, but it was one of those asian / african woods that sink right away.

I soaked mine for 3 days, and they still turned the water in each tank a slight brown tint.

 

[kevin007]

This is a good question, although i like the look of the tannins, i prefer a crystal clear tank, just my oppinion I wonder what the fish likes more...