Tannins & the Driftwood

[nes]

Manage to scoop a free peice of driftwood from a buddy but it's been out of a tank for a year. It's been in my 40 gallon for about two weeks now and still isn't weight down but the bigger problem is the amount of tannins (colouration) it's giving off. I'm not concered about it throwing my chemistry off (the discolouration can make young & flighty fish feel more comfortable so I don't care about not having white water!) but this is not a healthy brown. It looks like a brown bloom but I've never heard of one that colour. & my tank STINKS despite repeated water changes - I'm going to try a filter clean today & was thinking some filter floss might help but I don't think it would be fine enough.

I've really limited experience with driftwood as I usuallay don't bother b/c expense of really nice big peices.

Suggestions?

Forgot: had a little ich infection so I added some clout and uped the temperature last week, is it possible the clout did something? the increased temperature might also expain the sudden increase in bio activity in the tank - so it could be a bloom afterall but that would be strange.

Should also ad:

Tank is about a month (or a little older) old,
Filter has been running here (was on another tank for about a month) seeding new tans for 2 months or so
Filter was on an established tank with another filter for about 2 months

So it shouldn't be a bacterial bloom. I did just clean the filter & if anything it seems a little over clean for the amount of time it's been running - but cleans the poop out of the filter pads & we'll see if that makes a difference.

& filter is an eheim 2217 (rated for a 160 gal) but it's only a foot lower then that tank bottom so I don't think I"m getting optimal performance :\

Nes.

[Rudy00]

i suggest running some carbon

[nes]

I was thinking that too.

Sucks all my fish stuff is at home, I'll have to go buy  but I would bet that would clean it up!

The water is clearing slowly but I'm a little worried about my parameters b/c the fish are gasping a little - but I did 40% change this morning I don't see how the water could have gotten so bad so quickly :x

Nes.

[Rudy00]

when you say clean the filters what did you do exactly? As tanins shouldnt do anything in the lines of water quality 

also the smell that you say you're getting - is it strong urine smell? other wise a tank should smell like fresh earth or something along those sorts if its a urine smell the tank might be having ammonia issues

i'd suggest testing water parameters and keep those water changes going, probably a bit less though as to keep pH from swinging too much from large water changes

maybe lower the amount of food being offered to the tank as well to cut down on additional nitrate introduction into the tank

-randy

[nes]

It's a high nitrite fishy smell. I don't think it's an ammonia problem I am getting a few bubbles but they look more like they are caused by protein build up then high ammonia. (although I have only been feeding frozen bloodworms & cichlid granduals so I don't know where high protein would be comming from)

To clean the filter I just pulled out the pads and hosed the whole thing down with cool water (warm enough/not too warm to keep from killing the bacteria) to remove the big gunk (and there wasn't much of it).

I tried to cut down on the food first but my oscars THINK they are STARVING! And are doing that cute wiggle up and down the tank at a constant pace to get us to feed them some more. But they are so really searching around & picking at everything so we've switched to a few pellets but all adult brine shrimp to keep the mess to a minimum (the food change is just this morning).

I agree the tannins shouldn't be effecting water quality at all! but the water problems seem to have come at the same time the tannins did. Last week my water was PERFECTLY clean/clear & not smelly :\

Nes.

[Rudy00]

hm, i'd say maybe bacteria are eating away at your newly introduced piece of wood and are causing that smell, keep up with water changes like you are and i think you'll be fine, they will come and go as needed to break down whatever they're eating on the wood

hope that helps

[Zoe]

Yeah, I've had water stink up if I put old, improperly cured driftwood into the water.  Does the driftwood rub off if you rub it? You said it's been out of tank for a year, but how long was it in a tank before that?  I find it odd that's it's releasing so much if it was in a tank for a while, even if it was a year ago.

Otherwise, what do you have in the ways of plants?  If you've got java moss or guppy grass, and you're feeding a lot and/or have a high bioload, there may be food/waste getting caught among the java moss and rotting. It smells kind of like how bloodworms smell, if you know what I mean?