Tea Color Water

[sivabiot]

i have o lone oscar in a 55G tank ,today i added some drift wood and the water turned all tea color.

what should i do does this affect my fish need help immediately

 

[Truck]

no problem to the fish what so ever, its safe, if it bothers you run some fresh carbon in the filter

 

[sivabiot]

no problem to the fish what so ever, its safe, if it bothers you run some fresh carbon in the filter

thanks for reply ,i was worried

 

[hollanda88]

i have o lone oscar in a 55G tank ,today i added some drift wood and the water turned all tea color.

what should i do does this affect my fish need help immediately

its caused by tannins leaching out of the wood, if you add any more i would soak it for a week in a bucket of tap water. Could harm plants but most fish are fine with excess tanins

andrew

 

[Truck]

i have o lone oscar in a 55G tank ,today i added some drift wood and the water turned all tea color.

what should i do does this affect my fish need help immediately

its caused by tannins leaching out of the wood, if you add any more i would soak it for a week in a bucket of tap water. Could harm plants but most fish are fine with excess tanins

andrew

why should it harm plants? seeing as probably 75% of us planted folk use bog wood in scapes and we get tannins and it doesnt affect our plants

 

[mcgrimes]

Maybe the colour of the water might prevent certain wavelengths of lights reaching plants? Im unsure about that one.
I have heard however that these tannins can cause the acidity of the water to increase.
I had a large piece of wood (mopani?) in my shrimp tank, but it caused to water to go way to yellow so removed it. I had a piece of ocean rock in their to help counter any acid effects.

 

[rdd1952]

Odd that we end up with 2 threads about colored water (the other one) at the same time. As mentioned it's harmless to fish and some like the look it gives the tank. It can lower the pH slightly. It really depends on how much buffering capacity your water has. The more buffering, the less effect it will have on pH.

 

[mcgrimes]

Haha yeah i noticed, i posted a link here on the other.

 

[Bignose]

Could harm plants but most fish are fine with excess tanins

If anything, the tannins help plants. The tannins, being dissolved organic compounds, tend to bind up with some of the minerals and heavy metals in the water. Specifically, they help bind up with micronutrients that the plants need, and in that bound-up state, plants can uptake those necessary micronutrients easier. It is all part of the cycle of plant life. When a plant dies and releases these tannins, it help the still living plants take up the necessary micronutrients. If you want to read more about this, please see Diana Walstad's excellent book Ecology of the Planted Aquarium.

If you were thinking that the dark color absorbs too much light, that usually isn't of a great concern either because the specific wavelengths of light that most aquatic plants prefer aren't strongly absorbed by tannins.

In addition, because the tannins bind up with heavy metals, it also protects the fish from those possible dangerous heavy metals, too. Some fish will be more likely to spawn in tannin infused water, too.

In short, I think that tannins provide quite a lot of benefits and really no negative side effects at all, except some people don't like the look.

 

[hollanda88]

i have o lone oscar in a 55G tank ,today i added some drift wood and the water turned all tea color.

what should i do does this affect my fish need help immediately

its caused by tannins leaching out of the wood, if you add any more i would soak it for a week in a bucket of tap water. Could harm plants but most fish are fine with excess tanins

andrew

why should it harm plants? seeing as probably 75% of us planted folk use bog wood in scapes and we get tannins and it doesnt affect our plants

something to do with antifoliates and flowering, i can't remember it exactly but i know i've read it although it wasn't in aquatic plants it was uptake from the soil in terestrial south african species.

andrew

 

[Truck]

i have o lone oscar in a 55G tank ,today i added some drift wood and the water turned all tea color.

what should i do does this affect my fish need help immediately

its caused by tannins leaching out of the wood, if you add any more i would soak it for a week in a bucket of tap water. Could harm plants but most fish are fine with excess tanins

andrew

why should it harm plants? seeing as probably 75% of us planted folk use bog wood in scapes and we get tannins and it doesnt affect our plants

something to do with antifoliates and flowering, i can't remember it exactly but i know i've read it although it wasn't in aquatic plants it was uptake from the soil in terestrial south african species.

andrew

well if its not in aquatic plants it isnt relevant

as bignose said DOC's bind organic compounds together in a way in which plants can utilize them