water clearity

Question
i have a 70 gallon aquirium, with 8 african cichlids, 1 jack dempsy, 1 pink and 1 black and white convict.  my set up consist of several pcs of drift wood, life plants and a few artificail plants.  use a bio-wheel filter system (Emperor 400).  every 10 days i perform a 75% water change with clear water tablets.  after 4 days the water turns a reddish tint.  what could be causing this problem.  what do you recommand i do to correct this problem.

Answer
Hello,

I have honestly never seen reddish tinted water, but I might be able to hazard a guess at what is causing it. It seems to me like you are changing way too much water all at one time. It is important that you don't change too much because it gets rid of the beneficial bacteria, allowing the bad bacteria to move in and potentially cause water quality problems. You should change around 15% every week. No more then that. Also, you may want to add a denitrifier, such as Cycle, and maybe some waste remover as these will help improve the general quality of your water.

Just after I typed the above paragraph it all of a sudden clicked to me that another cause of your problem might be your driftwood. How long have you had it in there? New driftwood can often cause discoloration of the water. It is neither good nor bad, but its best to boil your driftwood before you put it in your tank to prevent this. You may want to try boiling your driftwood, even if you've had it for a while.

I hope this helps. If in a month or so you don't see the problem clearing up, feel free to get back to me again and we'll see if we can work out another solution.

Good-luck,
From Stephanie