Hi everyone! Ive had tanks for several years now but this is an issue I haven't run into before so hopefully some of you have.
I used my canister filter and decorations from my 40g to seed my new 75g. All was well for a few weeks. I bought 3 pieces of Mopani Wood to decorate. A day later my water was yellow. OK, new wood is going to leach tannins. I changed my carbon to clean it up and did a water change. I left the wood in since it wasn't effecting my ph, just the look of the tank. Then I started losing fish.
After several fish I pulled the new wood and decorations from the tank to get control of what was going on and did a 50% water change. The wood has been out of the tank for almost a week, I added an immersable filter with carbon only in it and the water is still yellow. The only wood left in the tank is a piece of wood I've used in my tanks for years without issue. After the water change i lost almost everyone in the tank within days (osmossis maybe?). All of my levels are as follows:
Nitrates 20
Nitrites 0
Ph 7.0 and stable
Kh 80
Gh 180
-Now that the new wood is out of the tank and I added more carbon, the water should have cleared up but it hasn't. Could my drift that I've used for years be breaking down after years causing the color? I had no tannins in my 40g, why all the sudden would this piece of drift breakdown so fast?
-why wouldn't new carbon pull the color out at all?
-I want to do a water change, 25% maybe, but haven't lost a fish in 24 hours so I also don't want to touch it. If I lost the fish from osmossis, a water change is only going to cause a quick shift in gh and I'll lose fish again.
-Should I try to bring down the gh before any other water change?
-Im boiling the tannins out of the new wood now, I'm giving it a 6 hour boil. If the tannins are no longer leaching, my gh should stabalize correct?
-Why would my gh jump so high but my kh and ph remain stable?
What am I missing?!?! I can't get it under control.
I used my canister filter and decorations from my 40g to seed my new 75g. All was well for a few weeks. I bought 3 pieces of Mopani Wood to decorate. A day later my water was yellow. OK, new wood is going to leach tannins. I changed my carbon to clean it up and did a water change. I left the wood in since it wasn't effecting my ph, just the look of the tank. Then I started losing fish.
After several fish I pulled the new wood and decorations from the tank to get control of what was going on and did a 50% water change. The wood has been out of the tank for almost a week, I added an immersable filter with carbon only in it and the water is still yellow. The only wood left in the tank is a piece of wood I've used in my tanks for years without issue. After the water change i lost almost everyone in the tank within days (osmossis maybe?). All of my levels are as follows:
Nitrates 20
Nitrites 0
Ph 7.0 and stable
Kh 80
Gh 180
-Now that the new wood is out of the tank and I added more carbon, the water should have cleared up but it hasn't. Could my drift that I've used for years be breaking down after years causing the color? I had no tannins in my 40g, why all the sudden would this piece of drift breakdown so fast?
-why wouldn't new carbon pull the color out at all?
-I want to do a water change, 25% maybe, but haven't lost a fish in 24 hours so I also don't want to touch it. If I lost the fish from osmossis, a water change is only going to cause a quick shift in gh and I'll lose fish again.
-Should I try to bring down the gh before any other water change?
-Im boiling the tannins out of the new wood now, I'm giving it a 6 hour boil. If the tannins are no longer leaching, my gh should stabalize correct?
-Why would my gh jump so high but my kh and ph remain stable?
What am I missing?!?! I can't get it under control.