Brown water

Question
I have a 20gal tank that I keep stocked with live plants, 3 sunset fire platys, and 1 black mollie. I have water Wisteria, and 1 piece of driftwood that has been in the tank for 3 months. My water turned brown over the span of a week just suddenly, I think its just Tanins from the driftwood, but it had been in the tank for 3 months with no browning of the water. I also noticed my water was foaming a bit on the surface in places. My carbon filter has been out for the last 2 weeks as I had to treat Ick, then Popeye in my tank. Neither medication was brown in color. I also just removed 2lbs of coral gravel from the tank about 4 weeks ago that i was using to bring the Ph down to around 7.5, I did notice the white bags I had the gravel in were turning a rust-brown color and the airstone near them had changed the same color.

I've been doing 10-20% water changes every 2 days to clear the water. If its the driftwood I know I'm fine, but if its not what do I need to do to correct the issue?

Answer
Hi Joseph,

I retrieved your question out of the question pool.  It can take a few days or weeks for the tanin in the driftwood to take effect and this can stain your water yellow or brown for up to a year so it's not going away any time soon.  This driftwood will help lower your pH so keep an eye on that (crushed coral is known to raise pH, not lower it).  Livebearers can live in a range of pH anyway, from 7.0 to 8.0.  The key is to keep it consistent.  What no fish can tolerate is a swing in pH.

Brown water can also indicate diatoms.  Diatoms can be caused by overfeeding, resulting in a high concentrate of phosphates or not throughly doing routine maintenance where leftover food rots in the tank, also causing phosphates to rise.  It can also be a result of a very newly cycled tank.  How long has your tank been running and how did you nitrogen cycle it?

I would advise you to test your water.  Poor water quality leads to diseases, pop eye and ich.  Your ammonia and nitrites should always be 0 and nitrates 5-20 ppm.

If you don't think it's the diatoms then it's the driftwood and you'll just need to wait it out or remove it.

Good luck: )  April M.