My wood is releasing slimmy liquid into my tank?

[Impi]

Hey guys/girls, my fish tank has been cycling for a week now and 3 days ago I added some driftwood from the local pet store in, after soaking it for a few hours I added it(I want a black water tank look) so I didnt want the tannis totally gone. The wood started releasing some kind of slicky stuff out of it and its now causing my tanks surface to look like a water colored oil spill, it is stopping air from leaving my tank and is also causing my tank to foam, short of taking the wood out for good, what can be done to stop this.. I've done 4 water changes.. the more I do the longer the cycle will take.

Thanks guys!

 

[FireRAT3]

Pull the wood out and scrub it really good under hot water, you can net the water surface with a brine net that may help a bit. A lot of time you get a white fungus on the wood and a Corey cat will take care of that once your tank is cycled.

 

[Impi]

What is being released into my tank by the wood thats causing this slick surface and foaming around the airated filter

 

[BBradbury]

Messy Driftwood

Hello Imp...

You can remove the wood and run it through your dishwasher. No soap of course. Your wood piece may have some sap in it that's causing the problem. If you're doing a fishless cycle, then no harm done. Proper tank cycling takes several weeks anyway, so I'd recommend large, frequent water changes just to keep the water looking good and the parameters in the safe zone.

B

 

[Tigroscr]

Did you boil it before adding it to the tank? Like the previous poster said it will build up a white fungus looking stuff probably for a month or so after adding it to your tank but this is a normal process and will go away in a month or so. All my driftwood did this when I added it to my tanks.

 

[Impi]

So I should just leave it like this with the wood in the tank or should i take it out and boil it? Will be hard boiling something of this size.

Thanks lads

 

[Tigroscr]

You can leave it as is but it will leave a film on the top of your tank for awhile along with the foaming etc. Could affect your ph also. It will also release some tannins as well but after a couple months most of the tannins will go away. Most of my tanks have some kind of driftwood and their all crystal clear. Did you say you have fish in your tank? Also do you have anything to aerate the top of your water? If so that should reduce the filminess on the water surface.

 

[Impi]

I removed ans soaked the wood in boiling water for 4 hours than scrubbed it for ages. I added to my tank after doing a 70% water change but the foaming persists, I'm adding fish next weekend will this foam and film on the surface effect them?

 

[Tigroscr]

I removed ans soaked the wood in boiling water for 4 hours than scrubbed it for ages. I added to my tank after doing a 70% water change but the foaming persists, I'm adding fish next weekend will this foam and film on the surface effect them?

No it shouldn't effect them at all! I bought a rather large piece of driftwood from the LFS for one of my 55 gal not too long ago and even though it said it was aquarium safe I still cleaned and scrubbed mine really well with hot scalding water in the bath tub ( it's such a large piece that I didn't have a pot big enough to boil it on the stove.) Then I just put it right into the tank and it floated at the top for about 3 weeks or so then it gradually sank to the bottom. It released a lot of tannins and quite a bit of foam and had the slimy unsightly looking white fungus all around it for most of the 3 weeks until it finally sunk. It didn't seem to bother my fish at all matter of fact they seemed to like it better floating at the top of the tank than they did when it sank. For an extra precaution though even though it was an established tank for the most part before adding the DW and my water params were good I did 2 pwc's every week instead of 1 just because I didn't really like the color the tannins released into the water.