For the good of all MFK!: My Mopani Experiment

I've seen a bunch of driftwood threads lately asking how to get rid of the grey fuzz fungus & remove tannins. Sometimes the chunk is too big or people just dont want to use the tried and true best method of boiling new wood for several hours to both kill the fuzz & remove tannins, so I decided to do a little test.... That said, this experiment is ONLY to test 2 alternative methods of killing the fuzz. Tannins are easy: just soak the wood for X amount of time until it quits leaching, but that wont kill the fungus. In this case, I don't mind tannin, so I went & picked up 2 new similar-sized Mopani pieces to work with. After a lot of searching, I finally found 2 that were close enough: each piece is roughly 1' long x 4" wide, have similar grain color/pattern & weigh about the same.

Test pieces:
Chunk 1(in Display)-- Used Oddball's idea of soaking in a copper solution (Use only with copper-tolerant FW tanks!!!!) for 24 hours. Dose was 5mL CopperSafe dissolved in 3G of water, piece was fully submerged.

Chunk 2(in Sump)-- Also soaked for 24 hours, but only in straight chlorinated tap water (no copper). For this one I used my idea of nuking the piece in the microwave to kill the fuzz. After checking for metal fragments, I nuked it on high power for 2 minutes & let cool.

Experiment conditions:
1) 20G-Long tank with a 22G DIY sump below (15G of water in sump)
2) 80 degrees F
3) Both tank & sump are heavily planted
4) 41w of light on sump, 36w on display


Dropped both pieces in this morning & I'll update tomorrow!

Zander_The_RBP;3902494; said:

hmm good ideas personaly next time i geta peice of driftwood i would just soak them in a strong salt solution as fungi(grey fuzz is a fungus usualy) are very sensitive to salt.....

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Dangit! Thats a good idea! I should have done a third piece soaked in salt solution to compare the others with... Maybe next time I guess.

Dan Feller;3902819; said:

I just bought $85 worth of Mopani Driftwood (2 x 15-20" pieces and one 28-34" piece) from Petsolutions, so I'm quite interested in your results.

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I'm thinkin you would need a reeeeally big microwave brother! Hopefully the copper works, cuz you'd also need a massive pot to boil those in...

First update, 24 hours after dropping the wood in: No visible fuzz on either piece, but some notes... Chunk 2 (sump) does feel slightly slimy, but could just be that its not in an area with a lot of movement. I guess the good news is that nothing in the sump seems to be suffering any kind of irradiation from the microwaved wood.... Chunk 1 (tank) has also not caused any adverse effects on the fish/plants from the copper soak...

Other observations (both pieces):
--As a sidenote, I'm not seeing the amount of tannin I would have normally expected after 24 hours from pieces this size, especially since I usually boil them for hours & soak them for a week or so before introduction. Maybe skipping the boiling is causing the release rate to be much slower, but will last longer...? I'll let you know on that one in a few weeks.
--I have observed slight softening (GH) since yesterday, but only about 1 dGH or just under 20ppm.
--No measurable change in KH yet, but from my previous experience, I don't expect to see the KH start dropping until all the tannins have leached out. At that point they usually become KH sponges for a few weeks, sucking up a degree or so each week, then level out & continue to absorb just a few ppm each week. With that in mind & when you notice the tannins slowing down, keep an eye out for that initial pH drop if your tap water is low in KH buffers or closer to neutral... Not a problem here in TX, as my KH is over 200ppm from the tap.
--Also no measurable changes yet in overall pH. Again from past experience, I'll expect to see a very slight but consistent drop in pH starting maybe in the next week or so. I usually see a drop of about 0.1 pH per week until the GH quits being absorbed & KH starts getting sucked up, at which point I expect to see that .3 or .4 drop in pH that I mentioned above. One waterchange usually fixes this for me, after which GH & pH should re-stabilize, while KH will continue to be absorbed very slowly.

I won't have a chance to check it this weekend, but I will do another quick update when I get into the office on Monday. Thanks for tuning in MFK!!!!!

Sorry for the lack of updates guys! I've been bed-ridden since Sunday with a gift that my nephew gave eleven!!! of us for attending HIS 1st birthday...Stomach Flu! Little punk. I'll be back to work tomorrow & will check on the wood chunks. I bet those tannins are out of control by now & I'm sure the Loaches have eaten all of my plants. Oh well. Big WC for me tomorrow!

Holy geez yesterday was rough! Anyhow, tannins galore, but I still have no fuzz on either piece... I'm thinkin microwaving & copper soaking are both good alternatives to boiling! I'll keep checking & updating though. Thanks for tuning in!