The driftwood was added about a week after the tank was started up.
Timeline, as I can remember it-
-set up tank aug 25/26 with plants
-added driftwood that weekend
-added fish on Labor Day.
I never saw much of an ammonia/nitrite spike (to .5 but that's all), but at this point they are both always 0 and nitrates are around 5ppm. I'm guessing that the plants (one of which was an anubias nana in a pot full of a mossy/felt material- it was in an established tank and the felt material was pretty green looking so I'm guessing well seeded) silent cycled the tank... now that I understand cycling better I can't really see any other way it could have cycled with the very minimal ammonia I added and the short time period it took.
The driftwood was soaked in extremely hot water (not boiling- just as hot as it gets out of the tap, which could quite possibly burn) several times until it no longer released tannins and then I rinsed it in dechlor water before putting it in the tank. I suppose the combo of the driftwood and spring water in the tank at that point could have really dropped the pH- I didn't think it would so unfortunately I didn't test the pH at that point.
My bucket is probably *just* large enough to hold the driftwood (it's longish), but I don't have a lid, and since I'm in a dorm, there is zero space- if it gets bumped and spilled it would be a pretty big problem (and by pretty I mean REALLY- I dropped a damp towel on the floor and didn't see it and the carpet started bubbling up after a couple of hours). I'm more inclined to try 10% PWCs to see what happens doing it that way first.
Thanks for all the help you guys!!