# Water Tanning



## PlantNewbie (Dec 4, 2009)

I'm currently using Organic Potting soil mix from Homedepot and those small wood pieces seem to release quite a bit of tannings into the tank. I'm wondering if the tanning will go away eventually with time without any water change? There's a lot of plants in the tank atm and only 1 betta.


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## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)

it'll stay there for a long time. activated carbon will pull tannins out pretty quick.


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## PlantNewbie (Dec 4, 2009)

Usually how long until the wood pieces stop releasing tannings? How long is a "long time"?


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## Rtifs (Nov 6, 2009)

I have a follow on question purely out of curiosity. Tannins are really tannic acid, right? So would alkalinity neutralize the acid and thereby clear the water?


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## PlantNewbie (Dec 4, 2009)

The pH for the tank I'm refering to is 7.4 its sorta alka.


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## queijoman (Jun 23, 2008)

Maybe if you plant a tree in your tank then it will harvest all the tannins for itself. j/k

I have a 6 month old tank and it is still full of tannins. I don't think that you should hold your breath on that one. If they go away at all by themselves or through filtration, it will not be soon.


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## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)

Tannins will stay in water for years. The only way that I know of to remove them from the water it through water changes and activated carbon. This process will clear the water pretty quickly depending on how often you do a WC or replace the AC.

Yes tannins are from tanic acid and they will lower your PH. Alkalinity will not do anything for clearing the water from tannins.


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## bmedeiros678 (Mar 26, 2007)

My tank is just over a month old. Bought the same soil. Had AC in the filter kept the brown water in check for three weeks. Got some advice on here to replace the AC after three weeks. It has been over a week now with the fresh AC and the water is clear as can be. In two weeks I will take out the AC and see if the water will stay clear. If not I will put new AC in and replace every three weeks.


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## El Exorcisto (Aug 10, 2006)

Keep stirring to a minimum and do weekly changes. My tank dumps tannins into the water column a couple days after a big rescape, but that's it. It has been set up for a little over two years though.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

PlantNewbie said:


> I'm currently using Organic Potting soil mix from Homedepot and those small wood pieces seem to release quite a bit of tannings into the tank. I'm wondering if the tanning will go away eventually with time without any water change? There's a lot of plants in the tank atm and only 1 betta.


I would do a water change every 2-3 weeks for the first 2-3 months to remove the tannins. Or keep charcoal in the filter. The first few months in any new NPT requires a little timely maintenance.

After the soil settles down, you won't see any tannin release. Tannin release is a temporary problem.


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

Different materials release different amounts of tannins, and for different lengths of time. 
I put some oak bark in some tanks, and the water turned wine red. No matter how many water changes I did it kept coming back to wine red within a day or so. Finally, after about a month the bark had leached most of the tannins, and the water would take on just a hint of color, but not so dark that I could not see the back of the tank. Activated carbon made no difference to the water when it was so dark. Probably filled up in less than a day, and the bark just kept on leaching. 

I added some branches of a hardwood tree (probably Crape Myrtle, Lagerstroemia sp) and there were no visible tannins. 

If you do not want this you could boil or at least soak the material ahead of use, and change the water several times. When you are ready to set up the aquarium a lot of the tannins will be gone.


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## PlantNewbie (Dec 4, 2009)

Would it work if I store the carbon in a coton bag and place it inside the tank or does it needs circulation?


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## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)

That would work just fine as long as it's at the output or intake of your filter/powerhead.


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## Juergen (Sep 5, 2008)

Rtifs said:


> I have a follow on question purely out of curiosity. Tannins are really tannic acid, right? So would alkalinity neutralize the acid and thereby clear the water?


yes, Tannins are tannic acids, but all that gives the odd colour are no tannins. 
What stains the water in case of soil or peat are humic substances. In case of wood or leaves the offcolour comes from other secondary plant substances than tannins.
Using "Tannins" as colloqial expression for those staining substances may be ok in order to keep the ball low, but chemically it is not correct.

Imho, the staining is stronger in hard water so a higher alkalinity doesn't help. From my experience with peat and alder cones (a strong source of tannins and colouring substances) the stain degrades with time in fishtanks.
So it depends on your woodchips how long they can uphold the water colour.
Regards


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## tames (Apr 18, 2008)

I have learned a new lesson about the tannins. If they appear, you will want to clear them up in fairly short order. On one of my tanks, the tannins have seemed to discolor the tank glass. It is really strange. I finally did use charcoal to clear the water, but the glass has this film on it that is VERY difficult to get off with an algae scraper.


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## brighty K (Oct 1, 2008)

Seachem's Purigen makes short work of tannins. On the website it claims that it's 500 times more powerful than carbon, and I've seen it do some pretty amazing things.

Big Purigen fan. I like to see my scape, regardless of how poor it may be


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