Wow...Orange Water

**CambridgeFish** · 08-22-2010, 02:55 PM

Well. Some here had commented on my doing research to set everything up properly before screwing the pooch on my 29G aquarium. I guess it goes to show, just when you think you have everything under control.... :)

We set everything up last night. Water, rocks, wooden thing, heater, filter humming away. Had impulse-purchased two little plants at the store, but follow the instructions i had separated them, spread them around a bit, dug them into the substrate, etc. Took a picture, as I was pretty happy with the way everything looked at the time. Famous last words, I guess.

The water was tap water, conditioned with API tap-water conditioner. [I'll be honest, I was guessing at the amount used, as we only had a 3 gallon bucket and the minimum listed was 1ml for 5 gallons.]

Pre-Disaster picture here

Woke up this morning to this.

It's Orange, fair warning...

I have no idea what I missed. We did not leave the light on, we soaked everything before putting it in. Ideas? Help?

Edit: No fish are in the tank. It's just a couple of poor amazon swords from petco, and some green planty thing my GF liked the look of.

**promise** · 08-22-2010, 03:06 PM

WOW

That driftwood and rock thing look as is if it has leeched into the tank, continue to do a daily water change, it should clear the water for you.
not sure about putting carbon in the filter someone else can maybe answer that one
or take the wooden thing out and boil it to leech some tannins out

**Lady Hobbs** · 08-22-2010, 03:06 PM

LOL Does look rather orange, huh? My guess is dust from the substrate or from some decoration. You mention some wooden thing. Was this something your purchased meant for fish tanks?

Wood will leech brown tannis but I don't know as it would happen in just hours.

**CambridgeFish** · 08-22-2010, 03:21 PM

It was a piece of driftwood, and it was sold as a fish accessory, but perhaps it wasn't quite as clean is we had thought. We had left it to soak for probably an hour in a bucket with no discoloring of that water, but weren't looking incredibly carefully tbh.

I guess one question is should we just drain the tank and start over, and if so should we re-clean the gravel / rocks / driftwood, etc?

Edit: Also, would that leeching affect the pH? It appears to be increasing, pretty significantly. We're up off the normal pH scale now.

**Nautiline** · 08-22-2010, 03:24 PM

My guess is the driftwood as well. To avoid those tannins coloring your tank water in the future you can pre-soak new driftwood in a bucket of de-chlorinated water. Change the water in the bucket every day or two until the water is clear. After that just wait an extra couple days to make sure the water stays clear, then it should be ready to go into your tank. Gently scrubbing the driftwood can help too.

This method worked well for me. There's also a way to do it more quickly by boiling the driftwood, but I don't know much about it.

As for your current tank, it should be harmless and as already suggested if you keep doing water changes the water should eventually clear up. Hope this helps!

**AndorranPrince** · 08-22-2010, 03:31 PM

If it were the wood, the pH would be going down, not up, and the water would be brown, not orange. What's that spongy orange thing to the left? List of decor(s) as well as rocks, etc in the aquarium would be helpful.

**Xavier** · 08-22-2010, 03:31 PM

Had a similar issue when I put in driftwood, although it just made my tank a light amber, not a full blown orange brown. LOL!

I wouldn't empty the tank, but, like everyone else is saying, change a fair amount of water for a couple of days and it should clear up nicely.

**Lab_Rat** · 08-22-2010, 03:44 PM

That's just tannins leaching from the driftwood. Run some activated carbon, it should pull a lot of that out.

The most likely reason for the pH increase is the off-gas of CO2 now that the water has been in the tank more than 24 hours. That is your true pH. The pH you get right from the tap is not. When testing your tap water, put the water in a cup and let it sit about 24 hours before testing for true readings.

**gm72** · 08-22-2010, 03:48 PM

I agree that it is tannin leaching. I usually boil my driftwood for several hours, changing the water often. This accelerates the initial release of the tannins.