Tannin removal

[Skyrmir]

I've been running my 75 gallon planted with some mopani wood, giving it a nice tea color. Letting the tannins color the water was intentional, as I was trying to make a more Angel friendly home, which it did, maybe too well.

Recently I've doubled the lighting to bring it from a low light to a medium light tank. So now the tannin effect has gone from a natural look to an ugly tea effect.

After about a half dozen big water changes, it still has that annoying yellow tinge to it. Would activated carbon or maybe even some co2 help clear it up any faster?

co2 might be a little tricky though. I doubt I could slip the cost of a ph monitor set up past the wife, so it'd have to be a timered system. I'm still kind of wary about that since I have very soft water that could crash if I look at it wrong.

[rkilling1]

Yes, activated carbon would help clean it up. If it doesn't clear up, you may want to remove the pieces of wood and boil them to remove as much of the tannins as you can.

[Skyrmir]

Already removed the wood. Only piece left in there is a really old piece that's been boiled long ago. Besides, it's my pleco's favorite chomping wood. I'll get some fresh carbon tomorrow and give it a shot. I usually don't run it in my planted tanks.

[QTOFFER]

Don't forget to change the carbon often. Despite what you may have read or heard, activated carbon isn't 'good' for a month. If there is alot of organic stuff in the water, AC will become saturated pretty quickly because it's very efficient at binding organics. You'll see faster results if you use small amounts of AC and change it out every other day or so.

[Zagz]

Another thing that will help aside from carbon is fresh filter floss.

[Skyrmir]

Ok, I need to get more sleep. For a good 10 seconds or so I was trying to figure out how a bird was going to clear up my water...

I don't have floss in my filters, I use sponges instead. Fortunately I can super clean them one at a time without worrying about my bio filter. Probably take the sponges out of both and leave the bio balls alone in one of them until the other gets reseeded.

[7Enigma]

Zags,

I don't see any way filter floss with help with tannins in the water? To my knowledge the polyester will not dye and so I don't see its purpose?

[Zagz]

It doesn't dye, it absorbs the color out of the water. I have used it many times. If you take any colored water and run it through filter floss the floss will absorb some of the color. It does not work alone, I do use carbon at the same time when I have tannins or a new tank setup.

[fish 'n' fries]

I've used carbon alone and it works amazingly well (so much that I didn't realize how badly the mopani releases tannins...)

[greenfish]

Purigen will make your water crystal clear including completely removing tannins. It isn't the cheapest but at least it is reusable. It works awsome!
http://www.seachem.com/products/prod...s/Purigen.html