Mopani driftwood root?

[Mopani Root]

hi guys, the mopane gives a natural river 'hot' effect!?
most people around the world loves this tipe of style!
the reason for the tannin, is because of the tipe of region the roots are takin out. some reagions are hotter than other, leaving less water behind, making the roots alot tougher.. shape, size, and age are the main factors from the tannin effect. the tannin can come out for up to 2 years, if it's a VERY VERY old root, with very few water in the trees life. these trees grow older than 700 years old, until rivers just drained away in the years, or lightning took out the tree.

if you guys are wondering what the proses are of taking out the roots, and handeling it, feel free to email me, and i'll forward you some pics straight from our farm.

 

[Robert H]

"mopani" has been in the hobby for decades. Someday maybe someone will find out the actual specie name of the tree it comes from! Many kinds of wood contain tannin, but rarely does it last for more than a few days. Once it is all leeched out, thats its. You just change your water or run some carbon to get rid of it, and you will never see it again.

Tannin is harmless, in fact it is beneficial for many fish and often triggers spawning. The only negative affect is when it is darkening the water it makes it harder for light to penetrate it, so you loose some intensity for your plants.

Here is a new type of wood from Indonesia called tambora root stumps. It contains absolutely no tannin and has unique looking shape and texture:

http://www.aquabotanic.com/images/DSC00334.JPG

 

[Cory Keeper]

That is not mopani, that is grapevine.

 

[Robert H]

No, it is not grapevine, and it is not Mopani. Can't you see what I wrote? I said it is called Tambora wood from the jungle of Indonesia, and it contains no tannin. I imported it from Indonesia myself. I even have figurines carved from the same wood by local tribes people. Pretty cool stuff

This wood swinks on its own.

 

[aquaholic]

Wow nice looking wood. That would be nice looking in my tank.

 

[Mindcrime121]

I've got one small piece in my tank and had a medium which accidently got left behind when I moved up north, but hoping my old room mate will mail it to me shortly. Considering other kinds of wood at this time in case he doesn't because it's so expensive. If anyone knows a good outlet for it with REALLY good prices to counterballance shipping costs, please PM me.

 

[bazil323]

I love Mopani wood! I got a nice piece that was completely dry from the lfs. I boiled it for about 30 minutes, let it cool, and then put it in my tank. It only let off a small amount of tannins (even in the boiling process it was negligible) for less than a month. It did "grow" a whitish slime on it for a couple months, but I just rinsed it off every week for 2 months. I haven't had a problem with it since then, 3 months later. In retrospect, I wouldn't bother with the boiling unless it came from a tank that I wasn't sure about.

 

[blue2fyre]

I have a piece of Mopani wood in my 55 gallon. I boiled mine when I first got it then soaked it in a bucket of water for a week, changing the water every day. When I put it in my tank there was little to no yellowing and any that did show up were quickly removed through water changes

 

[Mindcrime121]

I'm pretty surprised that mopani wood developed that fungus like grape wood normally does! Generally that's why it's so much more popular in a tank than grape wood, because it sinks and doesn't develop those sort of problems, not to mention the fact that you boiled it first, I can't see how any fungal spores could have survived to bloom up in your tank that way! Are you absolutely certain that the LFS didn't sell you a large piece of grape wood root? I've never known any sort of LFS sold wood to do that other than grape.

 

[Mindcrime121]

Ok, I retract my last post here... I got a huge log of mopani, soaked it in the tub with the water as hot as it could get from the tap, and a few days after it went into the tank I got a little nit of the same stuff on a small portion at one end of the log. Never had it happen with this kind of wood before now though... Pretty wierd.