Grungy driftwood

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Territoons

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
212
Location
Southern California
Ugh! I am SO GETTING RID of the driftwood in my tank! After 3 months it is still leaking yellow tannin into my water, and dripping "driftwood dirt" all over my white sand.

UGH!

But I thought I'd stop by and say HI to you guys! I've missed you!:cool:
 
Here is some pix of my starting point. See how GROSS my water is? I took out the DW last night...

I am taking out the sand this morning...and redecorating! I'll keep sending pix...
 

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No, I didn't. I had two huge pieces...one was about 4 feet long....
This is what my tank first looked like three months ago when I first put the driftwood in.
 

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The only thing you can do to get the tannins out is water changes, do it over time, if you don't want the coloring. The tannins do not harm your fish in any way!so it's safe to have that yellowish color.
 
I would take the wood out and put it in the bathtub with hot water and scrub it down thoroughly with a scrub brush. It will still leak tannings but I think it will help with the stuff all over the sand
 
Well, scrubbing helped a lot..I actually scrubbed it while it was in the tank every time I vacuumed, and I vacuumed up the grunge, and that helped...but I am just tired of maintenance. So I am changing to a gravel floor and a rock decor, with live plants. I've already bought the rock and gravel....

I am excited, actually, for the change. Unfortunately for my fish, I LIKE change.:lol:
:fish2::fish1::fish2:
 
Territoons said:
Well, scrubbing helped a lot..I actually scrubbed it while it was in the tank every time I vacuumed, and I vacuumed up the grunge, and that helped...but I am just tired of maintenance. So I am changing to a gravel floor and a rock decor, with live plants. I've already bought the rock and gravel....

I am excited, actually, for the change. Unfortunately for my fish, I LIKE change.:lol:
:fish2::fish1::fish2:

Lol.

Are you sure this driftwood was for aquariums? The way that it is disintegrating looks not normal to me.
 
I have very fine sparkly black sand in my 10G, and it is beautiful, but very difficult to vacuum. I am going with a darker gray gravel..a natural color, but more gray than tan. I'll send pix!
 
I finished!

Yaaay!!!! I finished!
And you may notice a decided LACK of driftwood and THE WATER IS NOT YELLOW!:D

So now, what should I stock it with? I currently have in that 1 large pictus catfish, 4 ancient zebra fish that are tough as nails, 2 neon tetras, one rummy nosed tetra, and one Mickey Mouse platy female. I am thinking of moving the tetras and the platy to my 10G and getting something like gouramis or barbs or angelfish or??? Something a little bigger, more colorful? Hardy? This fish tank is in my preschool classroom.

I'm really looking for suggestions....
I like variety, and I like color.

:brows:
 
here are the pix:
 

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Thank you. I have a large pictus catfish that insists on hiding ALL the time, so I built him a "cave" that was open to the front, so the kids can see him once in a while. Of course, the silly fish has already dug himself a deeper hole in the back of the "cave", so once again he will probably stay completely hidden all the time. It's frustrating...he is my most beautiful fish, but most people think he is a figment of my imagination! :)
 
I love angels. That would be a nice option. You could also increase the numbers of all the schools of tetras you have, which would look quite stunning with all the colors. I wouldn't do both though, the angels would likely eat the smaller tetras, especially the neons. Beautiful tank, though!

And on another note, just an FYI, the bamboo you have in there will eventually rot since it isn't really an aquatic plant. The leaves need to be kept out of the water.
 
thanks for the ideas!

And I suspected that might be the case with the bamboo...in one pet store they had the leaves exposed and in the other they had the bamboo completely submerged. I was hoping the submerged would work...maybe it will grow quickly enough to get a leaf peeking out of the top....hahaha
 
Territoons said:
what could I put with angels?
and I would probably move the tetras to my 10G

Some tetras can be with Angels, such as rummynose, black tetras, Kerri tetras. If you introduce a small Angel into the tank, your chances to succeed are better, the Angel will get use to the other fish in the tank while it is still growing...
I have 4 Angels with cardinals, neon, Kerri, and rummynose with no aggression ....so far...
 
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