I set up my tank yesterday and tannins have been leaching out of the driftwood. Unfortunately it's too big to boil. Will these go away by themselves, or should I keep changing water? Is there anything that can just filter it out?

Tannins are the perfect addition to any tank. That natural look is where it is at. And some fishies actually prefer it too. Not that I'm a black water advocate or anything. :o)

But....if you must.....water changes and run carbon in your filter. Then the aquarium will be just like everyone else's. ;o)

Haha, I was actually convinced that it wouldn't bother me, but I wasn't expecting it to be so murky and difficult to see through. Thanks for the tip, I'll look for a carbon insert for my filter.

I had the same problem. I took an orange Home Depot bucket that I bought for water changes and set the driftwood in it and then put it in the tub and filled it with HOT water and then just let it sit until the next day when I changed the water and added more HOT water again. This gets the tannins moving from the wood in my experience. I had a great piece of wood that I did this to every day for several months before I put it in my tank. Even now it still leeches tannins into the water and after a week the water has a brown tint to it, but it's way better than at the very beginning.

After a couple of weeks there is a noticeable reduction.

Thats when you start looking for another piece of driftwood. ;o)

Or just use Indian Almond leaves or Oak leaves. Oh...wait...this is about removing them not adding them. Darn...got confused again.

With time, they will eventually fade away.

you could try polyester like pillow fill it wont do anything for the tannins but will make the water more clear..

Okay, I've been running two bags of activated carbon in my filter for about twelve hours. There's definitely still tannins to be seen, but it's certainly helped to make the water more clear! I don't want to do too much with the water changes because I'm just starting to cycle the tank, but I'll leave that in there and see how it's looking in a couple days. Hopefully it shouldn't be bad for plants?

It won't hurt the plants any..

It took about 4 months to clear my water up. Constantly cleaning the carbon helped.

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125 gallon community, planted and driftwood. 1 bala shark, 9 roselines, 3 tiger barbs, 4 rasbora tetras, 5 lemon tetras, 5 diamond tetras, 1 clown loach, 1 bristlenose pleco, 1 dwarf bristle nose pleco, 1 albino rainbow shark, 2 bamboo shrimp, 1 siamese flying fox, 4 cardinal tetras, 2 jurapari and , 2 electric blue rams.

10 gallon:10 red cherry shrimp, 1 crystal red shrimp, 100 snails and 5 assassin snails (hopefully no longer 100 snails) and various plants