Burned driftwood?

[TheCrazyFishLady]

My friend was boiling driftwood and apparently burned it? It's dark brown and has brown residue coming off of it. She is currently soaking it in a bucket of water. Is it still safe to use in the tank?

 

[Zagz]

I can't see why not. However it will give off a very unattractive color. I would soak it until the worst of the color came out.

 

[TheCrazyFishLady]

I told her and she will and said thank you.

 

[Zagz]

Not sure how she burned it though. Must have smelled awful.

 

[TheCrazyFishLady]

Boiled it at too high of a temperature, I'm guessing. Or too long.

 

[XimeD]

Boiled it at too high of a temperature, I'm guessing. Or too long.

Too long so that the water evaporated and the wood was left in contact with the pan would be my guess, water boils at 100C and even if you add salt it will only go up a few degrees, that is not high enough to burn wood.

Is it the whole piece that's burnt? if it is and it is not too big maybe scrubbing can help get the burnt "flakes" off

 

[beepboop]

I'm staring a new tank and bought some driftwood a couple weeks ago. I boiled it and it turned black too. You didn't burn it. As you keep soaking it and replacing the water in the bucket, it will get lighter. If you let it dry a little, you'll see that the wood isn't as dark as you think.

Currently I'm trying to leach out all those dark tannins by soaking my driftwood in water and food grade lye. Since tannins are tannic acid and lye is alkaline, it will neutralize the acids faster. At least, that's my hope. I haven't found anyone else who's tried this, so it's an experiment.

 

[TheCrazyFishLady]

Oh, that's a good idea. The color doesn't bug me, I actually kind of like it.

 

[drprowant]

is it ok to put some drift wood from a lake in your tank or were should i get it from ?

 

[TheCrazyFishLady]

I don't think so. I would be carrying all kinds of stuff, so you should boil that definitely as a preventive sort of thing. Or at least, that's just what I would think. After some of these threads about bugs in their tanks... I'm scared to death about introducing things into my tanks. haha

 

[adeebm]

You really can't burn it while it's in water. Some driftwood darkens when it gets waterlogged, so that's probably all that happened. The brown residue coming off would be tannins and organic matter. It's perfectly fine to add it to your aquarium.

--Adeeb

 

[drprowant]

cool thank you so much

-----Derek

 

[TheCrazyFishLady]

It's doing fine in her tank after she soaked it a bit in a bucket. And no problem drprowant.

 

[beepboop]

is it ok to put some drift wood from a lake in your tank or were should i get it from ?

People disagree on this. Ultimately, driftwood comes from nature so whether you get it from a pet store or a lake it's the pretty much the same as long as you boil and soak it. I just find it easier to go to a store. There are also fake pieces of driftwood, but they rarely look as good as the real stuff.

 

[TheCrazyFishLady]

Yea, I have a fake piece that came in a tank I got. The cories like to hide in it, but eventually I want to get a real piece in there.