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I have a piece of driftwood that I purchased online. I soaked it for about 2 weeks in warm water and it finally sank. I put it in my tank yesterday and today my water has a slightly yellowish tinge to it that my Eheim will clear up for sure. I feel dumb asking this because I've been in the hobby so long but are the tanins that the driftwood gives off toxic to fish? I'm thinking no but I want to be sure.

no, the tannins are not toxic to any fish that i know of. if you want to be rid of them, you can do a partial water change and add carbon to your filter. otherwise you shouldn't worry about it.

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If your talking about the dark malayisan driftwood, then it will leak tannins for months, the color of your water will depend on how big the piece is. I have 46g with two very large pieces and my water still is slightly tan after about 1 year. And I have an Eheim Ecco rated up to 85gallons on the tank.



My Scapes

Tannins wont directly harm your tank. they may however drop your PH slightly. this shouldnt be a problem because it happens very slow and naturally. and the PH drop will be very small depending on the size of the wood compared to the tank size and how much its leaking tannins.

this isnt something you should worry about i just thought i would clarify with added information.

Dempsey fan

Not knowing the type of drift wood or its size it is impossible to say how long the tannins will leach out. If you are not happy just take it out keep soaking it in cold water and change the water daily, it should start to clear after a while. Give it a good scrub each day as well this loosens all the soft fibers from the outside, this is usually where the first tannin stain comes from when placed into a new tank.
If not it could be a piece that continually releases a lot of tannins.

Also it will not harm the fish at all unless it has come from poluted waters, if it came from a Aqu it should be perfectly safe.

Keith

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Thanks for the replies guys. The driftwood is in my 90 and it's a small piece. It's only about a foot long and a few inches wide. Not large at all. My water has actually cleared up quite a bit since I posted this topic this morning. Must of had a quick surge of tannins and then got filtered out. Thanks again.

If your talking about the dark malayisan driftwood, then it will leak tannins for months, the color of your water will depend on how big the piece is.

I soaked it for about 2 weeks in warm water and it finally sank.

Malaysian driftwood sinks on its own, and since he said that it took 2 weeks to get it to soak, its not malaysian, just something I thought of as I was reading this post.

HTH

~Jorge