# Does the yellow water ever go away?



## blackxlilies (Dec 14, 2011)

I'm on my second try with this, the first time around I set up a 5 gallon tank with some kind of organic top soil I got from Homedepot, but the water turned brown and despite the many water changes to try and get rid of it, it always came back then started smelling bad. I gave up and tore it down after the plants started dying  

I'm on my second try now with the plants I managed to savage from my last disaster tank, this time around I got the Miracle Grow organic soil, I have a 3.5 gallon tank, 1" soil and 1" gravel, a filter and air stone. The water keeps turning yellowish, not nearly as bad as the horrible brown water I had before, but even with complete water changes it still keeps getting yellowish :/

I thought it might just be that way so I gave in and added two cherry shrimp and both died overnight, so the water is def not fish safe. But the plants are not dying, and I actually think they've been growing. I was planning on giving this tank to my grandmother as a Christmas present (I'd be the one doing the cleaning and maintenance though), and I'd love to be able to as a couple of fish there for her. I'm kind of frustrated, any advice would be really welcomed!


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## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

In my experience, tanks that have a soil sub-layer that are not set up properly will always be a muddy mess (as you describe). If the soil sub-layer is not capped properly, then the soil has a tendency to always mix with the aquarium water; Trying to add more capping material does not seem to work since the addition of the cap in the water just causes the soil to float into the tank. As you found out, it is best to just tear down a problematic tank and start over. 

In this second tank you have, please tell us some more about it. Do you have any water circulation? How about posting some pictures? Is the water only tinted yellow? Is the water cloudy & tinted yellow? How big is the gravel? Without knowing any of this, I would suggest keeping up with the water changes as usually tannin leaching is only a temporary problem. You could try adding activated carbon to try to remove the tannins from the water column, but that would depend on what type of water circulation you have (if any). On the other hand, a soil sub-layer that is not set up properly does not go away. (But i don't think this is the problem in this case as it was in the first case).


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## thefisherman (Nov 26, 2011)

carbon, frequent water change till water clears up


Sent from my iPhone


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Your problems are definitely due to the types of soils you are using. These soils are designed for flower pots. They are 'chunky' so that there will be air spaces in the soil. Even if the potted plants are over-watered, the excess water will drain out of the pot leaving air spaces so that the roots of the plants will get oxygen. The chunkiness comes mostly from pieces of tree bark. These potting soils have not been composted very long and so a lot of the organic matter is relatively fast-decomposing and has a high oxygen demand. The brown material that leeches out of these soils is a complex mixture of tannins. and it is slowly released from the twigs, leaves and pieces of bark as they decompose. It can keep coming for a year or more. In addition, these potting soils may have had fertilizer added. If the fertilizer contains nitrate, it will be converted when the oxygen runs out, which will happen very quickly in your substrate, to nitrogen gas, which will bubble out of the soil., Sulfates will be reduced to hydrogen sulfide, which has a rotten eggs smell and which is toxic to plant roots, fish, and invertebrates. 

What you want is soils that are much more mineral and have much less organic matter. The organic matter should be well composted so that rapidly-decomposing organic materials are all gone, leaving only slowly decomposing organics behind. You definitely do not want lots of nitrates or sulfates in the soil. Some organic matter in the soil is beneficial because it decomposes and uses up oxygen creating anaerobic conditions where bacteria reduce insoluble ferric compounds to soluble ferrous compounds which are available to your plants. If you had almost entirely mineral soil, which you could get if you used subsoil, which is below the topsoil layer, you might get iron deficiency unless you fertilized on a regular schedule with a commercial chelated iron fertilizer. 

Do some browsing in the Substrates sub-forum and you can find a lot of methods and soil mixes that work well for planted tanks. Check out the stickies in the El Natural sub-forum (that's where we are now) and look for methods that use less organic matter.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Blackxlilies, I see that this is your first post--welcome to APC!

These are very good responses to your question. I think a discussion on the drawbacks of Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Mix is appropriate here. I posted this on another thread, here's my rap on MGOC:

It is a nationally available product, with consistent ingredients. It is not ideal, but its problems are well understood and can be solved.

1. It has too many large woody pieces that float, or decompose too rapidly if you can keep them under the cap.

2. It leaches tanins like crazy.

3. It is really too rich for aquarium use, causing ammonia spikes.

You can solve these problems in different ways:

1. Use it straight from the bag, cap it carefully, and do multiple large water changes for weeks. Test the water weekly, don't put any animals in the tank until ammonia level drops to 0. Plants can go in right away, and this shortens the process.

2. Soak it in a bucket overnight. Skim or pour off all the floating bits, then drain it and soak again. Repeat until there are no floaters and the water does not look like coffee. You will loose about 25% to 50% of the soil volume.

3. Mineralize it. This works best, but MGOC takes longer to mineralize (more cycles) than normal topsoil because of all the coarse organic material. After it is mineralized, I like to mix it 50/50 with Turface or some other inert substrate with high CEC.

As long as your plants are doing well in your current tank, use carbon in the filter and do the frequent water changes. This will work, but probably not in time for Christmas. Give your grandmother the tank at Christmas without fish, then plan an outing with her to pick out some fish when the tank is ready.

Good luck!


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## activesize (Jun 26, 2011)

I had good luck with the MGOC garden soil straight up without any extra prep. I haven't tried the MGOC potting soil. The MGOC garden soil has very little sticks and stones in it and I didn't get any abnormal amount of tannin leaching from it. I mean, my water has a normal slightly yellowish tint if you remove a gallon sample and look at it; however, there's not enough yellow tint to be noticeable in the tank at all. 

Also, it doesn't come up if you cover it with sufficient pea gravel.


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## blackxlilies (Dec 14, 2011)

Thanks for all the advice and tips!!  

The first tank wasn't actually muddy or cloudy, the water didn't have any soil floating around or anything, it was sort of clear but very dark brown like strong tea or something. Every time I changed the water it was that horrid shade of brown the next morning :/ With this tank, I also didn't have any soil floating around or anything, just the water keep getting yellow. 

I think there is plenty of water circulation. It's had a filter with a carbon cartridge going as well as an air stone (the stone seems to be too big, so I'm getting a smaller one soon) since it was set up. The water was not cloudy at all, just yellow. The gravel is pretty small, I have about an inch of it on top of a little less than inch of the MG organic potting soil mixed with a little bit of ground oyster shells. 


Shortly after posting yesterday, I went to do another water change and managed to disturb the gravel and soil pretty badly and ended up with muddy water, so I tore it down, rinsed out the old soil a couple of times, washed the heck out of the gravel and scrubbed everything else before setting up again.

As soon as I filled up the tank again I had really milky/cloudy water. I did a total water change again, it looked a bit cloudy but I left it alone till tonight. Again, I had really milky/cloudy water with just a hint of yellow. I did another total water change about two hours ago, and so far no cloudiness and no yellowish water at all... we'll see what it looks like tomorrow morning xD 

Sorry about the bad cellphone picture. This is what it looks now, I put all the plants on the back and tomorrow I'm gonna go get more plants and set them up when I do the next water change. The plants I already have seem pretty happy and are growing, they definitely look a lot healthier than they did when they were on my 5 gallon tank  

Thanks again!


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