# Help! What a disaster. 55g brown water. I mean BROWN.



## HolyAngel (Oct 18, 2010)

yeah id try purigen or biochemzorb in the filter, carbon may do it by itself but im not positive. I know the other two will for sure though..


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

Yeah, I just read about Purigen. Nice that it can be reused, unlike carbon. It says that it can treat 1,000 gallons for six months, but with my issue... how long should I expect this to take?


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

Depending on how bad it is it can take a few hours. I float two Indian Almond leaves per tank and when I run the Purigen off and on to clear up issues it does not clear my water after the 8 hour period I leave it in for. I do have a spare HOB filter for that though, I use filter floss and sponges in it and it handles things nicely for me.


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

Like I said, the water is as brown as coffee. I just bought 500ml of purigen and the bag from Amazon, so we'll see how quickly this works when I run it over the weekend. Experiment time!

I can't believe this happened, after all the research I've done (at least a year)... I made sure to take some pictures. If this turns out alright I'll post them.


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## AirstoND (Jun 17, 2011)

*Have a spare HOB*

I would do a 50% water removal and use a spare or two (4 stage) HOB filters.


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## BlazednSleepy (Aug 21, 2010)

Water changes in the mean time.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

goot776 said:


> I used liquid leonardite (humic acid) under my substrate instead of granular.


How far is it under the substrate? Where did you get it and what did it cost? I am seeing some for $1000.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

I would do many massive water changes to get as much out as possible.

Once the water is MOSTLY cleared up, then put some Purigen in your filter and that should help keep it clear. If you put Purigen in right now I expect it would be saturated within a matter of hours and I'm not sure that it would make that much difference to the visibility- sounds to me like you have an extremely overwhelming amount of tannic/humic acid in there right now.

Don't add fish till you've got everything under control- your pH and kH are probably being sent through the bottom and the water parameters will NOT be stable till the tannin levels also are stable.


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

Oh yeah, I was planning not to put fish in until about a month later anyways, to give the new plants a time to adjust.

I put half the Purigen in already, and I've come to your conclusion after the fact. I thought ahead and conserved half of the container beforehand anyways, so I'm still OK even though I need to go through the early hassle of re-activating the used portion.

I've done about four 100% water changes already, and it's starting to make some headway. I decided to up the temp by about 10 degrees to make the water a bit more soluble. You guys should see how this leonardite is leaching -- little wisps are coming out of the substrate like crazy. I do the water change, turn on the powerhead and let it mix a bit, wait about an hour, and then do another water change. Good thing I'm stuck at home writing papers, so babysitting this tank isn't too much of a pain.

I've taken some nice pictures. I'll be able to document this fiasco well, so nobody makes the same mistakes I did. Thanks for your help so far!


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

LOL

Sure sounds like work- I'm glad you've got the time to put into it!

I'm sure it will be work out all right in the long run, though. :icon_smil


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

Pictures are up.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

Hey- I can see there's stuff in there! :tongue:


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

Ugh. Very funny.

We'll see how it looks in the morning.

Hey, is it normal to have plants die back a bit after a new planting? Should I be doing anything as far as dosing to stop my anubia leaves from turning nasty? Or should I just lay off?

I can almost hear them screaming out of their little plant mouths, "HAVEN'T YOU DONE ENOUGH, YOU JERK?!", and waving little leaf fists at me.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

LOL

Yes, it's pretty normal, but your brown water probably also has something to do with it as it's blocking all their light.


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

Hilde said:


> How far is it under the substrate? Where did you get it and what did it cost? I am seeing some for $1000.


Pssh, $1,000? That's how I roll.










Amazon. Search for "Diamond Black leonardite". It's like $20, and great for outside gardens. I bought this based off the reference here. Little did I know he was referring to the granular form. Hindsight, I feel stupid, but to be fair I haven't found anything made by Diamond Black that's granular.

Edit: Sorry, the substrate is six inches thick at some parts, 1 inch thick at others. I have a very, very slight forward tilt to my aquarium, so I'm assuming most of the liquid leonardite has slowly pooled near the front, which is only about 1.5 inches thick of substrate.


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

lauraleellbp said:


> LOL
> 
> Yes, it's pretty normal, but your brown water probably also has something to do with it as it's blocking all their light.


Hence me putting my second bulb up there for the time being, and giving about 12 hours worth of light instead of 6. I feel like I'm playing with algae fire.

You know what would be really right up my alley? Replacing all of my brown water with green.


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

Last night, after about nine near-%100 water changes.










This morning. Ug.










This stuff is freaking tenacious. I really don't get how 2 cups of this stuff produces near-black water in multiple 55 GALLON water changes. Black EcoComplete doesn't discolor water, does it? There can't be anything else I can think of.


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## Rhaethe (Jan 20, 2010)

Oh my lord.

You are also quite tenacious. I think I would have torn the thing down after the fifth 100% WC.

Good luck!

Oh, and hey ... who knows, if you do tear it down and re-do things ... perhaps the re-do will come out even more to your liking than this one. That happens to me sometimes


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

Thanks. After planting a hundred of those marselia minuta nodes, I'm basically in denial and will not dump this thing. I think of it as my newbie penance.


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## secuono (Nov 19, 2009)

Oh wow, lol, I think I would of cried. Anyway...was it turning black while you were filling the first time or did you fill the whole tank, come back after a snack and omg it's all black?

Wait, if it's liquid...tearing it down would involve crazy rinsing of the substrate, so either way, a ton of water being used...

On the plus side, it makes a nice mirror.


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

secuono said:


> Oh wow, lol, I think I would of cried. Anyway...was it turning black while you were filling the first time or did you fill the whole tank, come back after a snack and omg it's all black?


Yeah, I had a sad face for a bit, but then turned into the male version of Rosie the Riveter. In the first and second water changes, it turned black right away. Now it's taking a few hours of powerhead action to turn dark. For the sake of efficiency, I don't change it until it gets really bad.

I've got a "semi-permanent" plumbing hookup from my kitchen sink to the aquarium via a silicon tube running down the hallway and across the office. Whenever it's time to siphon, I take the end of the tube from my sink and put it in the garden through the outside window.

When this is all done, I'm not going to know what to do with myself anymore.


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## secuono (Nov 19, 2009)

Doesn't that siphon kit waste more water than just tossing a tube out a window, sucking air out and letting it drain, then attaching the hose to the sink to refill? Idk.
I thought it did...Mine I got used and didn't have the sink attachment, so I bought and made my own with an on/off valve. So glad I don't carry 5g buckets all around the house..lol. I've even been able to up my water changes to 2x 50% instead of just a couple gallons a week. :/


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

secuono said:


> Doesn't that siphon kit waste more water than just tossing a tube out a window, sucking air out and letting it drain, then attaching the hose to the sink to refill? Idk.
> I thought it did...Mine I got used and didn't have the sink attachment, so I bought and made my own with an on/off valve. So glad I don't carry 5g buckets all around the house..lol. I've even been able to up my water changes to 2x 50% instead of just a couple gallons a week. :/


OMG, yeah dude, the siphon kit is nice but I couldn't stand the waste of water. Since it's easy to detach/reattach, I start the siphon using the faucet and then detach it and put the drain water in the outside garden through the office window. The best part of making it yourself would probably be the ability to use metal fixtures instead of plastic, but this one from Aqueon totally serves its purpose well. I noticed that getting all the separate parts from Amazon like I had initially intended (50 ft hose) would have been more expensive than it was worth, since I could only find the tubing I needed (food-grade polyethylene or silicon) in 100ft increments. Having valves on both ends is a great thing as well. Sure, one can DIY it, but it's all about priorities of work, and that is different for everybody.


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## VeeSe (Apr 16, 2011)

goot776 said:


> OMG, yeah dude, the siphon kit is nice but I couldn't stand the waste of water. Since it's easy to detach/reattach, I start the siphon using the faucet and then detach it and put the drain water in the outside garden through the office window. The best part of making it yourself would probably be the ability to use metal fixtures instead of plastic, but this one from Aqueon totally serves its purpose well. I noticed that getting all the separate parts from Amazon like I had initially intended (50 ft hose) would have been more expensive than it was worth, since I could only find the tubing I needed (food-grade polyethylene or silicon) in 100ft increments. Having valves on both ends is a great thing as well. Sure, one can DIY it, but it's all about priorities of work, and that is different for everybody.


You know that you only need to leave the faucet on until the first water from the tank reaches the sink, right? I just turn the faucet on for about 5-10 seconds to get the siphon going and then turn it off. The siphon continues just fine after that, with little to no water wasted (unless I'm completely misinterpreting what you're saying).

And wow @ your water....


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## elbandito78 (Apr 23, 2011)

goot776 said:


> Thanks. After planting a hundred of those marselia minuta nodes, I'm basically in denial and will not dump this thing. I think of it as my newbie penance.


I know what you mean. Those things are a bit of a pain to plant. Lol. Good luck!


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

VeeSe said:


> You know that you only need to leave the faucet on until the first water from the tank reaches the sink, right? I just turn the faucet on for about 5-10 seconds to get the siphon going and then turn it off. The siphon continues just fine after that, with little to no water wasted (unless I'm completely misinterpreting what you're saying).
> 
> And wow @ your water....


Wow is right.

Yeah, I know what you're saying about the siphon, right on. I live on Long Island, which is pretty much at sea level and doesn't have much of a municipal sewer system, so almost everyone uses septic tanks. If I dump too much water down my drains, I could cause an overflow ala "Meet the Parents" (which was based in Oyster Bay, Long Island). So instead of doing that, I reuse it in the gardens. Normally I would use the kitchen sink drain and your siphon technique but these are special, wondrous times.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

I drain my tanks outside, too. I've pretty much perfected the art of getting the siphon going using just the first 4' or so of the hose (I have a 75 footer lol).

It's going to be a nice looking tank once you finally get those tannins under control.


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

lauraleellbp said:


> I drain my tanks outside, too. I've pretty much perfected the art of getting the siphon going using just the first 4' or so of the hose (I have a 75 footer lol).
> 
> It's going to be a nice looking tank once you finally get those tannins under control.


Thanks. I really hope so. This is my first true aquarium, besides having a 2.5g glorified fish bowl. I'm wringing my hands about the plants taking root before dying off, and the anubia leaf melt, so I hope things will improve. I really want that marsilea carpet to grow (I got those based off of your recommendation, actually) since it took so long to plant.

This morning was a lot better than Sunday morning, but the water still needed to be changed out. I'm estimating that this will be under control by the end of the week.


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

My solution, get a powerhead, it doesn't even have to be a good one. Next on the output side of the pump get some tubing from your local hardware store, enough to hook up to the pump then to a bucket. Get a _big bucket_ because you are now shooting 200+ gph from your tank and into this bucket. Be sure you rig the inlet because odds are if you don't heed my advice something is bound to get sucked into your new jet-powered water removal system. I know, demon, you are insane but you know what, while most people are toiling away with their water change I am done and enjoying a beer.


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## goot776 (May 10, 2010)

demonr6 said:


> My solution, get a powerhead, it doesn't even have to be a good one. Next on the output side of the pump get some tubing from your local hardware store, enough to hook up to the pump then to a bucket. Get a _big bucket_ because you are now shooting 200+ gph from your tank and into this bucket. Be sure you rig the inlet because odds are if you don't heed my advice something is bound to get sucked into your new jet-powered water removal system. I know, demon, you are insane but you know what, while most people are toiling away with their water change I am done and enjoying a beer.


Yeah, I have a powerhead but it doesn't look like it would work with your system. Also, we just refinished our hardwood floors and I think my wife would divorce and then kill me if I jury-rigged a setup like that. But I do like the idea 

It takes me 10 minutes to do a 100% change so no big deal.


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