Driftwood Dummy needs IMMEDIATE HELP

[3newbie3]

I put a piece of driftwood in my established 12 gal freshwater tank 5 days ago. Now my water is yellow. The fish appear healthy but I need to know ASAP whether I should perform several partial water changes or a complete water change. I also have 2 established other tanks that could temporarily house the yellow tank fish.

Please advise!!!!!

 

[Purrbox]

Driftwood release tannins which will give the water a tea color. Depending on the type of driftwood and how long it was soaked/boiled will affect how darkly and quickly the water becomes colored. It is completely harmless to your tank's inhabitants. If you don't like how it looks you can always remove the driftwood and boil it for awhile longer to get more of the tannins out, or you could add some Activated Carbon to your filter. Water changes will also lessen the affects. If you don't mind how it looks, you can leave it be.

 

[maxwell1295]

Like purrbox said, the tannins released by driftwood are harmless to the fish. Make sure you can an eye on your pH......adding driftwood will mostly lower it, especially if you have soft water. In fact, if your water is really soft, enough tannic acid could cause a pH crash....something I have experienced before.

 

[3newbie3]

Thanks for the quick replies. After I posted, I found the excellent article by Scott68TN.

The tank looked nicer when the water was crystal clear, so I will be doing the water changes & changing the carbon filter.

Does anyone know if the gravel needs to be washed or changed to kid rid of the color?

 

[7Enigma]

The gravel is fine. Did you wash this wood before putting into the tank? Where did you get it from?

 

[3newbie3]

Driftwood dummy

No, I didn't wash/soak it before hand. (Hear the sound of head hitting against wall). I did rinse it under hot water before putting it in the tank.

Where did it come from? Good question. It was sitting around my house for 10 yrs with a bunch of shells. Then spent another 10 in the attic. I came across it & thought "geez, this would like nice in the tank".

So much for looking nice. Looks like somebody had a full bladder & no where to put it.

 

[JRagg]

Seriously, fresh carbon will clear it up.

I boiled mine for about half an hour and I still had ice tea water after a couple weeks. Just put some new AC in your filter and it should clear up over the next week.

 

[newfound77951]

Yeah, I'm having the same problem now too. I just added a new piece of driftwood that had been soaked for a loooong while, and repeatedly had boiling water poured over it (it's too big to boil on my stove). I've had a serious green water outbreak before so when the water started getting discolored I thought it might be GW again, ran my diatom filter and it helped a little but not much, so it's probably the driftwood. I'll be adding carbon to my tank soon!