driftwood

[bchbm2022]

I bought a piece of ZooMed Mopani Driftwood fromt he reptile section. It does say on it that it is used for aquariums and terrariums so i assume it is safe. Now I am boiling it for 2 hours. can it be put into my aquarium after that? I have nothing in there except gravel. I also have activated carbon media that will help take care of excess tannins. Am I doing everything correctly? This is my first time using real driftwood.

[Blueiz]

Yes, youre doing everything right. One thing to note is it might not sink. Ive never used this type of wood, only malaysian, so Im not sure about that.

[blue2fyre]

Mopani Driftwood is very dense and will sink no problem :) I have some in my 55 gallon. I boiled it then kept in a bucket of water for a week, changing the water everyday. I have very little tannins released into my water.

[bchbm2022]

thanx. i was very unsure. now since i dont have any fish in my tank can it be put in imediately after im done boiling it? or do i have to keep it in a bucket for a week? I read that tannins can make the water softer and lower the ph, which would help me because the water is hard and the ph is a little higher, which im working on lowering. Plus, fish from the amazon like tetras, which are what going into the tank, like water conditions like that.

[Mgamer20o0]

yea you can put it in right away. it will only leach out for so long though. depending on your water you might not even see a change in the ph.

[Shocker6966]

I recently got a couple root pieces that hadn't ever been in water. They offered me a little more trouble than usual in the amount of tannin in them as well as being a haven for some slime mold. But the latter has been a blessing of sorts - one day I thought that I had somehow killed my striped raph because he was almost round he was bloated so badly. Turns out that he just loves the mold so much that he eats until he's nearly bursting!

Interesting bit though - I had to weight the root pieces. Even after a month or two they seem as though they would float up should I remove the rocks.

[tempest104]

I bought the same type of driftwood and had no problems getting it to sink. A couple of problems I did have was with how long it took to soak the tannins out, not having a pot big enough to boil it in, and the fact that it did end up growing some slime mold while soaking. Constant rinsing and soaking in hot water however did get rid it.