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Re: Driftwood & Tannin...



Paul Mouristen is worried about the tannins leaching from his newly
installed piece of driftwood. Providing that it was obtained commercially,
it shouldn't have any other contaminants in it (self collected driftwood
could have, depending upon where you got it from), so just do a series of
massive water changes. It might take a while, but eventually the rate of
tannin release will decline and your water will no longer look brown. No
need to add charcoal, especially right now. You would only end up wasting
the charcoal - it will remove the color from the water, but it only has so
much capacity to do so and I'll bet that piece of drifwood had lots and lots
of tannin yet to leach. Water changes alone will work (patience helps as
well).

And you _can_ plant the tank while there are still tannins present - the
main effect of the tannins on the plants is that they absorb so much light
that the plants might have difficulty if the water gets too brown. Back to
more water changes.....

Good luck,

James Purchase
Toronto