Driftwood

[Wingman]

I've got a piece of Driftwood I bought from the pet store. It has turned my tank a beautiful shade of maroon. I normally like that color but not when it's in my aquarium.

I've received all kinds of advice, so far boiling it sounds the safest. I'm not sure about soaking it in bleach, that sounds a little risky. I'd like some input.

[djlen]

Boiling is the safest and probably the most effective way to get the tannins out of the wood. I had one that wouldn't fit into even the largest pot I had and had to turn it repeatedly to get all of it into the water.
My wife had a field day with that one.
In any event, just boil it until the water is dark red/brown, dump the water and re-fill and boil some more until it comes up almost clear. It will not come up completely clear, but after a couple re-fills it will be ok to put it into the tank. You can get rid of the dark water with water changes and over time it should stay clear for you.

Len

[JackDonkey]

I don't know that the brown color ever goes away, but I had a 30 gallon almost half full of driftwood (small pleco tank). I would change about 10 gallons a week and that kept a lot of the brown coloring away. So my advice is to change your water more often. Plus new driftwood "stains" the water a lot more than driftwood that is a couple months old, so you could just put up with it for now and then in a month or so it won't be that bad. What really sucks is when you get wood that has sap and other sticky goodness, yuck.