Driftwood question and secondary filter Q

[rossmort]

Hi, I just added a piece of driftwood to my 5 gallon and the water has become somewhat tinted. When I put it in I did a water change and was just wondering if I should go through and do some more changes to get the color out or let it be for a while. Thanks.

[medge00]

its probably going to tint the water for a while... you can run carbon in your filter, which will clean up the water some.

[rossmort]

Yeah, thats what I was thinking. It is just a little 5 gallon w/ [acronym:3d0c084887="Hang On Back"]HOB[/acronym:3d0c084887] carbon filter that was changed recently. I think the filter is really doing a bad job, I had quite a bit of floating bits in the water even before the driftwood. It is a whistper 2-5 that came with the tank, Anything I may be missing that is making it work very not so well? Or would it be a bad idea to drop in one of those little sponge filters to try to mix it all up and get it through the filter? Thanks

[illuminum]

When I wanted to add driftwood to my tank I plut them in a bucket of warm water and put some baking soda in it. I left it there until the water stopped turning brown. That took me about two weeks, but after that my water didn't change color at all.

[millipede]

Paging Mr Driftwood......
Do you follow me???
Yes
Well stop following me or I'll have you arrested....



I never heard of the baking soda idea... I have heard of soaking it though. Some people bake it to remove parasites... When I have small enough pieces, especially if I collect them myself, I boil them changing the water several times. This Gets the color out as well as any chemicals or pollutants that may have found their way in, depending on where it was found..., it kills parasites, and if it wasn't a piece that was waterlogged yet, this will take care of it... I have several pieces I collected, in my 15 [acronym:7fa6acfb45="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:7fa6acfb45] fw and I never had any problems with color in the water...

If baking soda gets soaked into your driftwood, it will leach back out and raise your [acronym:632af5fcf4="power head or Measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions, depending on context"]ph[/acronym:632af5fcf4]. Personally, I wouldn't do that. Boiling for several hours is best, [acronym:632af5fcf4="In my opinion"]IMO[/acronym:632af5fcf4]. Also, the tint (tannins from the wood) won't hurt anything, it's up to you whether you like the tint or not. Carbon in the filter will also get rid of the tint, but you must change the carbon every couple days for it to be effective.

[browneu]

I boil my driftwood to boil out the tannins, which is what is turning your water brown. It will clear up in several weeks.

[rossmort]

Thanks guys--Guess I will play the waiting game since it isn't worth the trouble to change the carbon on this little guy [acronym:cc8164edba="In my opinion"]IMO[/acronym:cc8164edba]

[Sati]

Here's an article on driftwood.

[madasafish]

My 55G tank water was *really* tannin-infused for a while with my large [acronym:582d41eeb8="Power compact fluorescent"]pc[/acronym:582d41eeb8] of Swahala driftwood. If I had to move or return a fish for any reason, and poured the tank water into a bag, the water looked revolting!

But in the tank, I had no objections to the slight tint. I know Shawmutt really likes that black-water effect that tannins give.