Driftwood and pH observation

[mussbu]

Before setting up my tank I threw x2 new pieces of driftwood (medium size) into a 5g bucket. The original tap water is 7.2 pH. 24 hours later I measured the pH again and it was reduced to 6.6 (I didn't measure the KH or GH, ). There was a good amount of tannin. I then put that along with an older piece of driftwood in a new 90g tank. As of 3 weeks it has yet to change the pH. It's still 7.2 (the original). My conclusion is that driftwood only softens/lowers pH if it is new. Does anyone else have conclusions about this?

 

[MyFishEatYourFish]

driftwood will continuously lower pH. its a process caused by its decomposition in the water and the chemicals held within. new driftwood will lower pH more initially because it has more tanins left in it and more decomposed material ready go into the water.

do you want the pH lower than it is or was this just an interesting observation to you?

 

[mussbu]

Mostly I like it because it looks good in a tank and fish like it too. But I do want to lower the pH a bit too. In the past, I never noticed that driftwood actually lowered my pH (in other tanks). That's why I ran this little experiment. Maybe it will eventually soften the water, but after 25 days, I've seen no result.

 

[JRUnyon21]

I believe the point of boiling the driftwood is to remove most of the tannins lingering in the wood. Once you place it in the tank it should continue to decompose and leech tannins but i do not believe it should happen fast enough to affect the water if you do normal water changes. Could b wrong, keep us updated bc i plan to make a trip to the local creek once the snow melts.

 

[SCGeordie]

In another thread someoe quoted something Knifegill had written re how tap water could have a Ph of say 7.2 initially but after a few days this will drop, the explanation was that stuff leeches from the plumbing into the water raising the Ph but that the water slowly returns to it's 'true' Ph based on the buffering capacity. I haven't noticed any different Ph changes in my tank with driftwood than in my tanks without driftwood.