New tank tannins/foaming bubbles/no fish yet

[Rebekah1806]

i have a 64l tank set up, have added soil substrate capped with gravel. A few live plants and spiderwood/and planted woods. It has been running with the filter heater and water in for about a week. There are tannins in the water making the whole tank dark brown as well as the plants. And foamy bubbles are forming on the surface by the filter. Any ideas? Help would be appreciated. I don’t want to be adding fish yet.

 

[Whiskyfish]

Got a picture of the foam? Could just be stirred up biofilm/surface scum.

 

[Rebekah1806]

Got a picture of the foam? Could just be stirred up biofilm/surface scum.

 

[Whiskyfish]

Doesn't look crazy to me. I'm gonna say just a bit of natural 'scum'. Wonder if it would go away with the filter off for an hour?

Pretty good level of discolouration there! How's the PH sitting? (Probably nothing to worry about, lots of plants and fish will love that kind of water).

 

[Seisage]

The tannins are definitely from the wood. As Whiskyfish said, there are tons of fish who love blackwater environments, but if you really don't like the blackwater look, you can add some activated carbon to your filter setup and it should clear all the tannic/humic substances from the water. If your wood has a lot of tannins, you may need to switch out the carbon every 2-3 weeks until all the color is gone.

It's also possible the brown water is coming from the soil if the gravel cap isn't super solid, which it might not be depending on the size of the gravel. That'll go away with water changes, but I think activated carbon might help with that too.

 

[Aqua67]

I have an open top aquarium and I sometimes get bubbles that accumulate near the filter from time to time. A good gravel vacuum and water change can help, and I have been known to drop a paper towel onto the surface and then pull it up, removing some of those bubbles too. It could be protein on the water surface, supposedly a protein skimmer could help, that is normally a salt water thing though. It could be due to oils from fish food, oils from putting hands into the aquarium, and I’m always asking that nothing be sprayed in the rooms of my aquariums.

 

[Colin_T]

It's probably from the soil substrate, they can leach all sorts of things into the water including tannins. Tannins normally come from wood but not always.

Do a 90-100% water change and see how it goes. It will probably be like that for a while due to the substrate and wood.

 

[MaloK]

Probably from the soil.

Spiderwood is a lightweight wood that doesn't release much tannins and the colour is habitually yellowish.

 

[AJ356]

Problem is the soil. Needs to be capped with sand really.

 

[AJ356]

Is this soil from your garden?

 

[Rebekah1806]

Is this soil from your garden?

Its plant substrate

 

[Rebekah1806]

Problem is the soil. Needs to be capped with sand really.

Its capped with very fine gravel