Tannins leeching

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Monkey Magic

Monkey Magic

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Feb 6, 2012
Messages
169
Location
Melbourne australia
Hey gus i recently bought a nice slab of wood from my lfs and asked the guy is their any way to stop the water colour changing... Due to a slight language barrier i couldnt quite understand him and after asking him to repeat himself a few times i just smiled politely and nodded but it sounded like he was saying biochem gel or something can anyone help me?
 
Most folks boil the wood. I boiled mine--it was too long to fit all of it in the pot, so I boiled it with one end on the bottom until the water was dark, dumped and refilled, boiled until it was dark, dumped and refilled, boiled until it was dark, then flipped the wood over and did the same for the other end. Haven't had any tannins leach yet.
 
Boiling's a quick way to release a bunch of the tannins. If it can't fit in a pot, submerge and boil as much as you can, rotate boil, rotate boil, etc... I usually boil any DW for up to an hour ... usually dumping and re-boiling water 4-5 times.

Another option is to run it in your Dishwasher (MINUS the detergent) on high temp. Some members have run it twice. However even with all this, chances are it'll still leach some tannins, but it shouldn't discolor the water much if at all.
 
Soak it in a large tub of water and change the water out with hot water daily. Will do the same thing just take a little longer. The tannins wont harm anything if you add it straight to your tank. I you have soft water you could have a slight pH decrease.
 
I got tired of boiling the new wood pieces from my fish store and ended up dumping them in my fish pond. I can fetch them out in a few weeks and hopefully they will be done leaching. Don't know if something like that is an option for you, but maybe just a large bucket outdoors for a couple of weeks or so.
 
mine soaked in our non-working hot-tub for a month and i just threw it in, my water is changing color, but i don't mind to much. cant tell the difference with the lights on
 
Ok so once again being a plumber comes in handy i have no pots big enough or a dishwaer so what i ended doing is making a smalll modification to my apartments hot water service which maxed out should bring it up to 80 degrees celcius if this isnt enough my lfs sells a pad which can go into my cannister filter and will clear it up in 24 hrs now all i have to do is explain why theirs a rather large piece of wood in the bathtub
 
Monkey Magic said:
Ok so once again being a plumber comes in handy i have no pots big enough or a dishwaer so what i ended doing is making a smalll modification to my apartments hot water service which maxed out should bring it up to 80 degrees celcius if this isnt enough my lfs sells a pad which can go into my cannister filter and will clear it up in 24 hrs now all i have to do is explain why theirs a rather large piece of wood in the bathtub
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Beaver infestation :whistle:
 
bonibelle said:
I got tired of boiling the new wood pieces from my fish store and ended up dumping them in my fish pond. I can fetch them out in a few weeks and hopefully they will be done leaching. Don't know if something like that is an option for you, but maybe just a large bucket outdoors for a couple of weeks or so.
Click to expand...

Id boil them again just incase there's some nasty's in ur pond!
 
Its just some sort of filter pad i asked him and he just pulled this pad out of the cupboard it didnt come in a box or with instructions he said it would last 3 months or so and would clear any leeching in 24 hrs. the wood is in the tank and no leeching has occured and i only soaked it in the hot water twice
 
I've never used it, deem it unnecessary as the colour doesn't worry me, but purigen works almost overnight in your filter too. I've seen it used for this very reason.
 
Mumma OF Two is your correct answer. I had a large piece of wood that took one (1) month before the water stayed clear!
 
You can run seachems purigen in your filter. Its also called seachems "the bag" at the LFS. It can be recharged after it get saturated with tannis. Has worked very well in my tanks.
 
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