Ugh - Driftwood Changing Water Color

[cjheck]

I soaked my driftwood for about 2 days and scrubbed the daylights out of it. There was no more color leaching out, so I put it in my tank. Well, now it's got my water a bit of a tea color (not very dark at all, but you can tell it's there for sure). I'm in the middle of my fishless cycle, and my pH is fine, but my tank is planted. Should I change out the water, or wait until the end of my cycle? I don't want it to effect my plants ability to obtain proper lighting!

 

[techen]

Leave it, It's just tannis which is pretty much a good thing for any fish tank life weather it be fish or plants. It shouldn't effect anything other than it looking like tea

 

[Ch4rlie]

As Techen already says, it certainly won't do any harm to fish or plants. In fact it can be slightly beneficial to have dom tannins in water.

The tea coloured water may eventually go down once you start doing water changes when the Fishless cycle is completed.

To be honest, I actually prefer to have tea coloured waters and have several pieces of bogwood, Indian Almond Leaves and do add Rooibos Tea!

Like said earlier, can benefit tank stocking as these contain natural antioxidants and is a matter of personal opinion if you like the tea colour water or not

 

[allydawn17]

Let it sit until the cycle is done, then you can do regular water changes when the fish are added that will make the color much less noticeable.

 

[cjheck]

I tested my pH today, and it's now down to 6.0. I have live plants in my tank and I'm worried that too low of a pH will kill them off. will the be fine? Should I change out some of the water? I'm still waiting to do my second dose of ammonia in my fishless cycle, so I thought changing out some of the water would give me a lower ammonia level than I would otherwise have. My nitrites have just started to spike, and my Ammonia is between 1 and 1.5ppm.