Driftwood tea water?

Curious...well what I do know is that driftwood releases tanins which release on there own accord. Many hobbyist don't like that it stains the water and effects water chemistry, so they try and boil the tanins out. Ultimately If you boiled your DW it would be a one time thing making driftwood tea as you put it. It would be better to let the DW release the tanins gradually on its own, creating a longer lasting source, and supplement with leaves to keep the WC where you want it.

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You can use driftwood if you don't boil it. Or you can get Peat Moss Pellets from the local plant nursery and place 1 in the filter. Same effect. Carbon will take the color out of the water if that is an issue.

Yeah, no. Unless you know the exact species of the wood and it has been dried out and clean properly, I would not reccomend doing that. There is a reason hobbyist use only certain types of wood for their tanks. Fungus, mold, bacteria are just a few reasons to avoid what you want to do. Not trying to be mean, just trying to educate.

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Is the firewood cut by you or a do you buy it? This is important because if you dont know where the wood came from you could very well be putting pesticides or other harmful chemicals in your tank with out you even knowing.

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First on wood, some is toxic on its own. Coniferous wood (pine, spruce etc) should never be used for this reason, the "sap" is toxic in an aquarium. Oak and beech works, and probably most hardwoods, but some (certain flowering shrubs/trees) may not be safe.

Second, I agree with the members who suggest not boiling the wood but simply using it. The slower release of tannins will be more effective long-term. But having said that, in most cases this does not affect the water chemistry much, regardless of the colour resulting. It would take a lot of wood to significantly lower GH/KH/pH, and this also depends upon the initial GH/KH.

Leaves work well; I have been stuffing my 10g with dry oak leaves collected every autumn in my back yard. I do this not to lower GH/pH but as a prime food source for the Farlowella vitatta fry that are growing up in this tank. The water is clearly tea-coloured. Photo attached shows this tank to give an idea of how many leaves; second photo for interest shows two of the fry, a larger fry mid-photo and a newly-hatched upper right. When I drain one pail (3 gallons) of water during the water change, in a cream-coloured pail, the water is so brown I cannot see the bottom of the pail; it doesn't seem this dark in the tank, but obviously it is.

Peat pellets is another option. Again, depending how low you want the pH, and the initial KH, you need to work out how many pellets and how often they need replacing. And as with leaves, these do give out, depending upon the afore-mentioned, so none of these methods is long-term unless the substances are regularly replaced. Diluting the water is the only long-term fix.

Someone mentioned using carbon to remove the dark colour in the water. This is true, but at the same time you are removing much of what you are adding. Carbon adsorbs (not absorbs, note) all sorts of substances, including DOC (dissolved organic carbon) which is crucial to plant growth, and you earlier mentioned plants in this tank. And DOC creates CO2 which helps to lower pH, so you don't want to be removing it. Never use carbon in a planted tank.

Byron.

My PH runs a little higher out of the faucet than I would like, so I put a large piece of driftwood in my tank. I couldn't believe how fast it worked. My PH was about 7.6. and an hour after I added the driftwood, it lowered it to 7.0 and has kept it there ever since. I am not sure about using "driftwood tea" to lower the PH. Without knowing the exact science behind it, it would seem to me that there is an exchange of minerals for organic material from the wood itself. This is how petrified wood is made. So having said that, I agree with everyone else, that it is much more beneficial to have the wood inside of the tank. But If you are going to do it anyway, let us know how it works.

I have a friend who uses tea bags to acidify his tanks; just hangs a Lipton tea bag in the tank and changes it out at water change time. Tea is high in tannic acid. I've never tried it but he claims it works great for his licorice gourami.

Mark