Driftwood

[Wayne487]

I recently bought some drift wood and I read somewhere to soak it prior to putting it in a tank so currently that's what I'm doing. I'm soaking it in boiling water from the kettle with a little very hit tap water along with an old piece of DW got with a second hand tank.

How long should I soak them for? Currently changing the water after 4hours to make it nice and hot again, the colour that came out was really brownish orange.

I know the old piece I got probably doesn't need soaking but figured it couldn't hurt maybe get rid of anything nasty (even though its been dry for at least 4week) so yeah how long before I can put them into my tanks??

 

[Grish]

Soak it until it no longer changes the color of the water. It can take quite a while though. What is leeching out of the DW is tannins. It is completely harmless to fish and some people put new DW in their tank specifically for the "blackwater" effect. It will lower your ph slightly but not enough to be concerned about.

 

[molliwopp]

Sounds good. Id just keep going until the water runs clear. Ive used different timeframes.. depends on thinkness or size of the wood but would soak wood from another tank for longer unless you new the tank was definitely in good healthy condition.

 

[Wayne487]

Soak it until it no longer changes the color of the water. It can take quite a while though. What is leeching out of the DW is tannins. It is completely harmless to fish and some people put new DW in their tank specifically for the "blackwater" effect. It will lower your ph slightly but not enough to be concerned about.

Will the water clear though if I was to put them in maybe tomorrow and the tannins were still leaching out?

 

[molliwopp]

Will the water clear though if I was to put them in maybe tomorrow and the tannins were still leaching out?

It may easily of stopped leaching tomorrow depending on its size. If tomorrow its only slighty colouring the water you could put it in because temperature is a big contributer to leeching also and from hot/boiling water leeching a light yellow colour would probably be an unnoticable colour change at tank temperature. But i guess if its still leaching in theory bad nasties could still be coming out too if there are any at all.

Actually anything living i would imagine would die quite quickly soaking in super hot water. So soaking any longer than 24 is mainly for tanins i would imagine.*

 

[Wayne487]

Sounds good. Id just keep going until the water runs clear. Ive used different timeframes.. depends on thinkness or size of the wood but would soak wood from another tank for longer unless you new the tank was definitely in good healthy condition.

Well I don't know actually if the tank was in good shape or not so may soak it for slot longer plus its alot bigger than the rest too, thanks!

 

[Grish]

Also if you have activated carbon in your filter it will reduce the amount of tannins that are in your water and make your aquarium water clearer. I soak mine just to kill any nasties that are on it then put it in my aquarium right away.

 

[molliwopp]

Also if you have activated carbon in your filter it will reduce the amount of tannins that are in your water and make your aquarium water clearer. I soak mine just to kill any nasties that are on it then put it in my aquarium right away.

+1 about the carbon there.