Tannin removal and plant advice

[kevgrot11]

I got a nice piece of driftwood at the LFS and soaked it for a few days to sink it and get rid of the tannin. Unfortunately I am still having a tannin problem after about a week of the driftwood being in my tank. Doing a PWC seems to get rid of it but it comes back after about 24 hours. What can I do to try to get rid of the tannin? Could I do a daily 10% PWC? I have carbon running in my filter right now but that doesn't seem to be helping much.

Also, while I have you here, I am looking for some advice on a few plants to complete my tank. I was thinking of adding a couple of small anubias plants in front of the amazon sword but I'm open to suggestions. I hope there's a pic of my tank somewhere in this post. I'm not sure how it works with the iPhone yet...

 

[fort384]

Hi Kev. You can try boiling the driftwood. It will increase the leeching process and get rid of a bunch of the tannins. Some driftwood will still leech tanins though even after that.

I think 1 or 2 different varieties of crypts would look very nice in front of the sword, if you want to try something besides the anubias.

 

[BigJim]

How much carbon are you running? The bag of carbon that comes with an AC70 took care of the tannins in my 29g. I think a lot of people try skimping on the carbon and that's why it doesn't work.