Driftwood Rot?

[warped1]

Hello folks, Well this is every other weekend and my son is down visiting me and working on the tank. As you may remember we bought some Malaysian Driftwood. And per some very good advice we boiled the heck out of each piece. We boiled them for 2 hours --- Now the problem--- One of the pieces has soft spots that crumble when scrubbed with a brush. There are some large pockets of this crumbly debris. When it comes off it resembles peat moss or mulch. There are very hard wood structures throughout the wood but there are a lot of these pockets (which we brushed and scraped out). It almost feels like there is a harder wood structure buried under these pockets. Anyway my fear is that if I place this piece in the tank it will rot. Here is a picture of the driftwood and the scrapings we removed. What do you think?

 

[pitt420dude]

Geese, I don't know warped1. Maybe you boiled it too long?

 

[Purrbox]

Pretty much any driftwood is going to slowly degrade over time when submerged. The trick is to ensure that it isn't degrading too quickly. Since you've got Malaysian Driftwood, it should be fine.

 

[warped1]

Thanks for the advice - but do you think I should continue to scrape out the soft spots or just let it be and let nature take its course? My fear is that it will make a mess in the tank and that it will harm the fish.

 

[Purrbox]

That's entirely up to you and your comfort level. I personly wouldn't bother.