giordanopg

I recently put a bought a piece of driftwood in a LFS and placed it in my tank.
The water has been a little yellow since then. I don't know if it's coincidence or if the wood really is turning it yellow.
Nitrates are 20-25 ppm. I did a partial water change yesterday.
I also have noticed a subtle brown coloration in the white gravel.

Any thoughts?

Dino

It is natural tannins from the wood.
Tannins are acidic, so they will lower your pH over time.

Overall, unless you are keeping high pH fish like African Rift cichlids, nothing to worry about.

They even sell a product that does this artificially, called Black Water.

giordanopg

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

MrWaxhead

And if you have fish like cardinals or neons etc, they will thank you. They rather like acidic conditions and tannin soaked water, I also think they look better in tannin soaked water, their colours punch more.

Isabella

Yup Some people put unboiled driftwood in their tanks on purpose: (1) to keep the pH lower, or (2) to give that "Amazon" look to the tank by staining the water yellow/orange with the driftwood.

freshwaterguy

Do you have any pictures of your aquarium? are you going to remove it or leave as is?

My own first driftwood has arrived today and I will be boiling it and washing in water treated with aquasafe.

giordanopg

Now that I know that the water is OK, I think I'll leave it as it is.
I feel that the tank lacks a little color. The only really colored fish that I have is a bright orange platy. The tetras, otos and corys are all black and white. The angel is white. And the gourami, well, its colors are a little pale.
Anyway, I'm pretty happy with my tank now even though it's still a work in progress. I loved that piece of driftwood.

Here's a picture before the water turned yellow.

Isabella

Yes, I have some pictures of my planted tank here: http://www.fishlore.com/Forum/index.php?board=103.0 (browse through the threads). There are both pictures of setting up the tank and pictures after the setup.

Remove what? My driftwood? If you're talking about my driftwood, no, I won't be removing it. I like driftwood in a tank setup.

I soaked, boiled, and rinsed my driftwood in plain tap water. That's because I put the driftwood into my tank together with everything else, when I was setting up the tank. When everything was in place, I simply poured tap water into the tank, and dechlorinated it in the tank at the end. All of this is OK as long as you have no fish. I waited more than a month to start adding fish to my planted tank. If you want to add driftwood to a tank that already has fish in it, it's probably best to rinse the driftwood well in dechlorinated water first.