Tea Colored Water In Planted Tank

[kjt1776]

I am pretty sure this is coming from the piece of wood that I bought that was preplanted but want to run this by everyone.


7 days ago I changed my 10 gal. over to a planted tank. Only one plant was pulled as it was on its way out. I changed my substrate from gravel to Fluval Stratum. This change over went perfect. I did put a thin layer of gravel over the stratum as you will see in the pics. I saved 5 gallons of water which I kept my fish and amazon sword in during the change over. Tank was cleaned very well with water and vinegar during the change over. After everything was switched over the water was gorgeous. I new that placing wood in would cause some water discoloration after awhile however this wood was already in a tank before and I was informed it was treated as needed before plants were attached to it. Few days after change over the water turned to a tea like color. My water tests show .25 ppm Ammonia, nitrite 0 and nitrate 0. I may have thrown my cycle out of wack a bit with changing half of the water. I am aware from reading and study that with wood now in the tank I will probably go for sometime with seeing this discoloration however is there anything I should do in case it is something else?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Liklihood is its tannins. Depending on the wood type, whether it was boiled, how long it was in water for, tannins could go on for years. Activated carbon in the filter should pull it out of the water if you dont like the look of it. Perhaps the previous tank the wood was in ran with carbon so they didnt see any, and it still hadnt finished letting it out into the water.

 

[kjt1776]

Thank you for response Aiken. Yes i do have activate carbon in the three stage filter i have. I thought same thing and changed the carbon bag to a new one few days ago

 

[Aiken Drum]

Carbon only lasts a couple of weeks. If it was older than that it wouldnt do very much.

 

[kjt1776]

The carbon i replaced it with was around a month old. Earlier after your first post i moved the new carbon to the top. I have a aquaclear by fluval. Since its new we will see after a few days

 

[Tony30gal]

Just do a couple 50 percent water changes spread out over couple day span

 

[kjt1776]

Just did the first 50 percent water change. Yes it does clear it up a lot but I do expect it to come back over the next 24 hours. Kind of hope it does then then im positive it is the tannins. Tanks doing good and Keith and Ozzy (zebra Danios) are still kicking. Actually they are named after Keith Richards and Ozzy Osborne becuase they just never die. They have lived through every tank screw up I have had in the past 2 years. But something I believe I did may have also knocked my tank out of cycle. When I did the big conversion and took out 5 gallons to pitch and kept 5 gallons for the planted tank i was converting to I rinsed my sponge a bit more then I should have. My sponge right now does not have any of the nice reddish colored bacteria it usually has. Water is top notch though Ammonia is at .25ppm 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate. PH at 7.0 currently. Something else is that I dropped the temp slowly to 72 after the water change. Taking it back up to around 75 slowly over the next few days. Pretty sure my good bacteria will start growing a bit faster in the sponge with a bit warmer water. Tannins and possible cycle being screwed up is my assumption at this point. Will see. I love the trial and error of this hobby or should I say obsession LOL