driftwood preparation

[tractorholic]

I've been looking at the tank photo's and lots of very nice tanks have driftwood. One person mentioned boiling his for four hours to prepare the wood. I have seen this dw in Petco and Petsmart,(yeah I know) and am wondering if I got a nice piece what must be done before adding it to my freshwater tank?
Question number two, I see that some folks have german blue rams in community tanks with cardinals, guppies etc. Are these fish really ok in a community tank like that? The fish are so beautiful, I'd love to have some in my 20g community tank.

 

[jsoong]

Prep for driftwood depends on source. If you collect it from the wild, there is a lot more work needed. If you get it form your lfs, it is a lot easier. However, make sure it is a driftwood for fish tank. There are also wood for reptiles at PetSmart, etc & the otherones will prob need more prep.

For a lfs driftwood, the minimum is to wash it well & sink it. Many driftwood already has slate attached to the bottom so it will sink. If not, you can either attach a piece of slate yourself, or sink the wood by water logging. To water log, you want to totally submerge the wood in a big bucket of water (put rocks or some weights on top), wait weeks to months (depending on wood species & size) until the wood stays down on its own.

Second concern with new DW is tannins release. This will discolor the water for some time, but is not dangerous to fish (some fish actually prefers the dark tannin stained water). You can remove the tannis by using carbon in the tank for a while (weeks to month) or just leave things be if the yellow/brown color is fine with you. <Again the degree of tannin depends on the wood.> If you are water logging, you can remove a lot of the tannins in the process if you change the water in your soak tub every few days.

With either waterlogging to sink the DW or for tannin removal, you can speed things up by using hot water. Boiling it for a few hours is the most effective (and the wood might get waterlogged in days instead of weeks) ... but if the wood is too big for your pot, just use as hot water as you can for the soak.