Driftwood Cleaning...

[KrabbeAquatics]

I've been soaking this one peice of driftwood in a bucket for almost a month straight. I change water daily and always use hottest water possible. Every morning the water is just as yellow as it was the day before. Is there any quicker, easier way to clean/prepare this driftwood? My 29g has been without wood for a while and the Plecos are not happy!

I tried searching for this, but I didn't spend too much time. Figured someone here could help me better?

 

[macdaddy5725]

boil it

 

[GrantA94]

Only time will remove tannins. I personally don't reccomend boiling because it softens the wood. My method is simply collect wood. Scrub it and pour boiling water over it, killing of any bacteria. Then weigh it down in the tank.

Never had any issues. Good luck

 

[tigercat]

You will not be able to remove all the tannins from the wood. I have used a pressure washer in the past to help clean the wood. As the previous post stated pouring boiling water over the wood helps kill bacteria. After all of this treatment weigh it down. And keep up the water changes. After some time you will notice a reduction in yellow water color.

 

[cjdesmit]

Agreed. Some pieces may leech tannins forever. I collect my own driftwood locally and simply just use a pressure washer to get any loose debris off before placing pieces in my aquariums. I've never had any problems. Tannins won't harm your fish but if you simply don't like the look of it, up your water changes and maybe look into a product called Purigen. It is very effective in removing tannins.

 

[KrabbeAquatics]

Thanks for all your inputs. I boiled it a little bit and the water was so yellow it was almost black. I've had a bunch of wood over the years and have never had as much trouble cleaning tannins as I did with this one. I have noticed that the tannins will never fully disappear. And I also notice it kinda smells like ammonia/nitrates if the water gets too yellow. I'm going to soak the wood one more night and see how the water looks then I'll decide if I wanna try it in the tank again or not. I try to look for pieces around here, but I don't live very close to any streams, rivers, or lakes that I could collect from. I like going down to the Ohio River to look for wood, but it's not close enough for me to go on a regular basis