Hey all, I have a 75gl, with a Midas, red texas, j/d & two clown lochas I found a piece of drift wood I would like to introduce to my tank. Problem is I'm not sure if it's safe to add. I Found it in the marsh near my home. Any input will help,, thx
Safe Drift Wood?
- Thread starter Chiapet29
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Yes ty, I figured just boil it first, let it dry out & It should be fine, I found it by the bay, It might have a high ph, but I'm not too concurned,,,
Will do, gonna boil it first, soak it for a few days, then let it dry out in the sun for awhile, should be fine, eventually I wanna start growing moss on it but first things first, Will keep you updated, thx again!
If you dry it out in the sun it will probably float. Get it water logged and add it to the tank. In what condition is the marsh it came out of? Clean or dirty?
I just find some in the marsh across from my house, scrub off everything everything i can, then soak it in a tub of chlorinated water with a lid for a couple days, to try to kill any crap on it without letting more in. Then i take it out and scrub again, as well as use a knife to scrape of anything else. Then i run it under hot water for a couple minutes and put it in the tank
I cant boil it because A) mum doesnt want me using her cooking pots; and B) i dont have anything big enough for most of the peices.
I cant boil it because A) mum doesnt want me using her cooking pots; and B) i dont have anything big enough for most of the peices.
I've used a lot of found wood in tanks, some with loads of tannins. Ime boiling removes a lot of tannins and does it much faster than soaking. I basically boil until tannins are at whatever level I want or can live with before putting the piece in the tank, which, in my case, means I don't mind some tannin from the wood once the worst of it's been removed. Essentially, I change water in the boiling process until I'm seeing what I want in how much tannin the piece is releasing.
I've also bleached found wood, which is fine but you have to take your time letting it dry to the point where you can't smell any bleach at all before putting it in your tank and may want to do a rinsing soak also-- meaning, again, boiling is the more efficient method.
Ime some types of wood will initially develop a whitish looking fungus or whatever it is, but ime it's harmless and goes away before long, replaced by more normal looking algae, etc. Based on that, my assumption has been that it's an initial stage of microscopic flora in the tank colonizing the wood.
I've also bleached found wood, which is fine but you have to take your time letting it dry to the point where you can't smell any bleach at all before putting it in your tank and may want to do a rinsing soak also-- meaning, again, boiling is the more efficient method.
Ime some types of wood will initially develop a whitish looking fungus or whatever it is, but ime it's harmless and goes away before long, replaced by more normal looking algae, etc. Based on that, my assumption has been that it's an initial stage of microscopic flora in the tank colonizing the wood.