Driftwood....do's and don'ts?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
My fiance was so mad when she saw me using our good (biggest) pots and pans to leech out the tannins and boil some DW I just bought. It wasn't until I explained to her why I was doing it (to make sure the chemicles, and little worms and parasites were all out of the wood) that she got really pissed.

SHe wasn't really that mad and I told her I'd wash em all thoroughly, she probably just wished I didn't mix our food ware with fish tank purposes.

Whatever, it was the only pot the friggin thing would fit in!
 
Yeah any large nice driftwood is too large to fit well in any of my pans! :) I have a very large stockpot and I boiled the smaller pieces but the larger one just got water poured on it in the sink. I am thinking that perhaps after it sinks I could boil one end at a time if the darn thing stays down! lol

I can understand the idea of icky things in my pans, but a quick wash and trip through the dishwasher and all is well!
 
I am thinking that perhaps after it sinks I could boil one end at a time if the darn thing stays down! lol
yeah i just did that with a piece i had hangin around. Used the biggest pot i had around and just boiled half at a time and kept flippin it over. boiled it for a couple hours and it's still makin tea so now it's soaking in a bucket and i just change the water every day. Haven't tried the apple wood yet. gonna see if i can find any more info on using fruitwoods.
 
Yeah I boiled mine for a couple of hours and I've still got tannins coming out of mine... I might get into it again tonight and see if I can't boil them all out. Geez, I hope so! I've like to get it into Bill's tank before Xmas!
 
I would guess that unless you've got a really fresh live piece of wood, it shoudn't take more than two thorough boilings and perhaps a week of soaking. After this it may leech tannis a bit but I'd be shocked it there was enough to significantly change the water (ph or color).

I suppose a lot depends upon the size of the peice of wood in relation to the size of the tank.
 
Could someone make a short list of hardwood trees that would be good to collect from? I can identify the trees if I know what I'm looking for, and then I'd just try to find some root pieces or small branches from the tree, right?


Oh, and p.s. My boyfriend totally has an OCD about me not getting tank water on ANYTHING. He wouldn't even re-use a hand towel that a drip of tank water got on. {rolls eyes} lol, whatever
 
just soakin gin water to let the tanins leech out before being in the tank.

I boil mine for a few minutes to kill any bacteria, then put in the tank after it cools

I prefer to have the tanins in my water, it actually helps to keep the fish healthier, and is very good for fish with low immune systems (mostly S.A. fish) From my experience, tanins are not bad for fish, the oppoisite in fact, it just doesnt look great, makes the tank water a tea color. cant even se through my 75 from the front to back (18 inches) if I let the tnains build up too much, but the fish have never had a problem with the water, they seem healtheir when there are alot of tanins in the water in fact.
 
I was just reading about this yesterday, that the tannins in the water in SA rivers etc kind of replaces the immune system of the fish living there. Apparently the acidity and tannins are enough to kill off most bacteria that prey on fish and so SA fish generally have very poor immune systems. So then it makes perfect sense that your fish seem healthier in you tannin-filled water. I'm going to do a SA tank in a few (well ok, several) months and I definitely am going to go for the dark water look. I'm really interested in creating a tank thats as similar as possible to an Amazon black water river system.
 
be sure to post pics. I think that would look great!

I kinda like the tannin look personally myself since most waters aren't crystal clear in nature so it looks more natural to me. I always suspected that it would help the fish in someway since everything in life is weaved together like lace weaved by blind nuns. miss one knot and it all goes to threads.
 
I have a piece of burl dw (no idea really what kind but it smells familiar and i believe it's an african wood) that i boiled i think 4 different days and at least 3 hours each day and the water still came out lookin like watered down tea. i finally said heck with it and stuck it in the tank to see how bad it would be. it turned the water slightly yellow brown so far and with the pwc i don't think it will get any worse. i just didnt want it to be so dark as to change the way the fish looked. Also my ph was 8 and now it's 7.4 so it helped in that respect too.

I would definitely boil the manzan for a while to get the initial shock of tannins out b4 putting it in the tank.
 
Back
Top Bottom