ZebraPleco.com • The complete Hypancistrus zebra resource

hi all added bog wood to my tank after boiling it and boiling it to rid it of the tannings but i still find my water goin brown from the wood is this safe and normal ??

Tannins are natural and perfectly safe, the fish love it

Yup tannins are good for zebras and other softer water fish!

are thats good ill leave it alone then till water change time i have now added 3 zebs into my tank 1 about 2 inch and 2 about 1.5 inch been told 2 girls and a boy thanks to a lovely women from manchester. they are all happy and hiding away 2nd day now and only seen them a couple times haha but thats a good thing

Carbon will reduce it some. Tannins are kind of a personal taste thing, some folks love it some hate it, fish are fine either way.

actually, zebras do not live in tanin stained water.

The Amazon and some of its tributaries, called "whitewater" rivers, bear rich sediments and hydrobiological elements. The blackwater and clearwater rivers, such as the Negro, Tapajós, and Xingu have clear or dark water with few nutrients and little sediment. The Xingu is crystal clear and carries little in the way of sediment.

From the Species Info here http://www.zebrapleco.com/core/zebra_pleco_habitat.php

They don't mind the tannins one bit though.
If you feel the need you can pull the wood out and put it in a pot of water and bring it to a boil then turn it off, let it cool and drain the water. Repeat till the water ends up a very light weak tea color and that's about as good as you will get it.

I did not say that tannins were bad for them, just that they naturally do not live in water that contain them. But also, I have not yet seen any evidence that tannin stained water is "good" for them.

Incidentally, I have been having tap water issues here regarding TDS levels. This set me on a course of research to try and determine what the TDS levels in the Xingu might be during dry and rainy seasons. The best I could come up with were measurements taken by researches a few years apart but in the same general area. The folks were actually more interested in the Apistos found in the river than zebras, however their numbers still apply.

Stawikowski recorded the following conditions for the Xingu near Altamira in September 1988 (low water): pH 6.5, 1º
dGH, 1º dKH, e.c. 120µS/cm @ 32ºC (90ºF). Lacerda measured the Xingu in about the same location in March 1996 (high water) as follows: pH 6.7 - 6.9, e.c. ~20µS/cm. The water temperature was cooler, probably around 80ºF. The upper Xingu was studied by Lowe-McConnell (this is the paper Pete mentions) and she reports similar hardness & conductivity values. The pH was considerably lower, pH 5.0-5.1, but this wasn't in the main channel.

From http://www.thekrib.com/Apisto/A-xingu.html

Those conductivity reading convert to TDS readins of about 14 and 80 (give or take). Talk about soft water. Some folks say that the more important info in this is that it only takes about a 65 ppm difference to differentiate between dry and rainy seasons.

wow! My R/O only takes it down to 15 So I guess I am not insane for doing up to 75% water changes on them with just R/O water