New Tank Water Turned Yellow Green

[fishnovice]

Set up a tank with 25% water from old tank (whicn was outside and may have had traces of algae) plus old gravel and filled with clean tap water. Then added a huge piece of wood bought on Ebay, not sure whether it's mopani or bogwod but it sank immediately and is very heavy. It came from someone's old tank and was dusty so I soaked it 24 hrs in bucket before putting it in tank Noticed tank water turned a strange pale yellow green colour (not algae green) within 48hours which makes it impossible to test for critical ammonia & nitrite. Tank is indoors with poor light so I don't think it's algae. So
1-Is it the wood and is this normal?
2- How can I remove this colour to enable API testing?
Can't really remove wood as it forms a great natural barrier to separate tank into separate territories for cichlids

 

[ThePiggy]

Why did you use old tank water? I think that you should rinse the wood off more thoroughly and use all new water and rinse the gravel off too. Be sure to use a water dechlorinator. If the water still turns colors again, there are chemicals that some fish stores carry that control algae growth. You may want to try that.

 

[Tory]

Thats what usually happenes with bogwood - dont know about the other type - if its not soaked, the water goes a yellowy brown colour

 

[fishnovice]

Why did you use old tank water? I think that you should rinse the wood off more thoroughly and use all new water and rinse the gravel off too. Be sure to use a water dechlorinator. If the water still turns colors again, there are chemicals that some fish stores carry that control algae growth. You may want to try that.

I recycled the old water and gravel to speed up cycling as I had to rehome my jewel cichlids urgently because of vicious bullying before I had time to cycle tank properly. It's unlikely to be algae as colour appeared within 1 day and tank is in a dark alcove
Do you know of anything to remove wood colour?

 

[fishnovice]

Thats what usually happenes with bogwood - dont know about the other type - if its not soaked, the water goes a yellowy brown colour

Thought I'd be OK with a 24 hr soak as the wood had been used in a tank before. I quite like the yellow colour -gives the tank an interesting Amazon look perfect for NW cichlids! Unfortunately it interferes with water tests which are critical as it's a new setup and not fully cycled so need to keep testing. Guess I'll just have to do big water changes to get rid of colour AND ammonia.

How long will the wood keep leaking colour into water?
How do you remove colour?