# Driftwood questions and curing



## Fishy_Cichlid (Aug 4, 2011)

I got some driftwood last evening. Nice pieces but they are leaching out tanins so have put them in a bucket and adding hot water to it.

I did notice, however, that it is also *leaching out some fine debris *specially when i scrub it with a scrubber. *Is this a sign of rotting?* *There are parts which are quite soft.* How will it affect if I put it in my tank ?

Regarding curing, *is curing with salt the best option *?? I also inted to add liquid bleach to it.

Anyone having any knowledge on curing driftwood ?


----------



## theyangman (Nov 5, 2011)

When I first got back into Cichlids, I went with a ton of mopani and driftwood in my aquascape. I have a 180 gallon, so I bought about 100 lbs of wood. I **thought** I had cured it. I spent days running it under super hot water, boiling the smaller pieces, etc... my tank was still tea colored.

I tried using floss in my hobs, still no help. It seems like it is luck of the draw on the wood you got. Some stop leeching faster than others and only time will tell. I got frustrated on the water color, so I scrapped all the wood, and went with rock. Couldn't be happier. lol

good luck bro.


----------



## inurocker (May 9, 2011)

The last I put in my tank. I boiled and soaked about 10 times bleached it and it still put tannins off in the water for 6 months. But now no problems. To answer your question no quick fix that I have found just time and patience.


----------



## Fishy_Cichlid (Aug 4, 2011)

> I did notice, however, that it is also leaching out some fine debris specially when i scrub it with a scrubber. Is this a sign of rotting? There are parts which are quite soft. How will it affect if I put it in my tank ?


Any answer ?? Are all driftwood a little soft like mine or is it a sign of definite rotting ?


----------



## theyangman (Nov 5, 2011)

if you are taking an abrasive brush to it, then I can only imagine you will be "scrubbing" small pieces off. It is a fibrous material and it will come apart if rubbed aggressively enough.


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Soft wood is not the best wood. 
I do a lot of wood and find some simple rules to follow will help. Choose very carefully to avoid tannins. There are those who say that tannins and wood sap are not the same. That's fine with me but I find if I avoid wood with sap left, I also avoid tannins. The wood I look for is not easy to find as it takes a special situation. The wood has to be totally dead for a long time. Years, not months. If there is bark left, leave it as the wood is not dry yet. The longer the better as it will dry with time. It can't be lying on the ground or in damp areas like in the shady woods. If it is on the ground or stays damp, bugs and fungus (rot) will ruin it. I take a small saw and go for long walks, usually only bringing back one or two pieces per trip.

Soft wood in the tank will be some trouble but it depends on you how much. It will not hurt fish but it may not look as good and last as long as a good solid piece. It may chip off and leave bits to clutter up the look of the substrate. It can be a nuisance to vacuum around as it will clog the hose or things like that. If you can live with that, it may just decay sooner. Two years rather than maybe ten or fifteen years. You have several years to look for a better replacement! 
Just remember that they are free for the picking and enjoy what you find.


----------



## jd_7655 (Jul 23, 2004)

I like the african root type wood. Theres several different kinds. I soak it in a plastic tub and change the water till it don't turn brown anymore. I've had to soak some wood for up to 6 months. I just bought a really cool peice that I'm probobly going to soak til June. Personally I don't like to boil stuff. It might soften the wood up and effect the longevity of it. Some african root wood don't stain the water as long as others.

I know some people love to use bleach on there aquarium stuff but I highly recomend not doing so. Wood is very pourus and would soak it up. It might linger in the wood for a long period of time. Some bleach's contain other chemicals then just bleach.

If you must boil it for a short period of time say a half hour or so.


----------



## Cartem2 (Oct 4, 2011)

jd_7655 said:


> I know some people love to use bleach on there wood but I highly recomend not doing so. Wood is very pourus and would soak it up. It might linger in the wood for a long period of time. Some bleach's contain other chemicals then just bleach.


+1 I use bleach on my rocks but would not use it on my wood!


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Folks who don't understand bleach need to read some about chlorine and how it acts.

Your concerns miss some points on logic. If a liquid can soak in, does it seem logical that it will not dry out? As it dries out, the chlorine in the bleach that has not reacted with the organic wood, will return to it's natural state which is a gas. The gas blows away.

It is better to just use the cheap bleach without smells or other added stuff but it is not a big item.

On another level, the chlorine in bleach is much the same chlorine that is in most of the water we use already. Many small water suppliers buy their chlorine off the shelf at the grocery store. To fear using it is just not thinking clearly about the levels of chlorine. The only difference is how diluted the chlorine is when we drink it. If we mix a teaspoon of bleach in fifty gallons of water, it is safe to drink. If we use a cup of bleach in fifty gallon of water and then rinse it with more water, it is the same thing. Water dilutes the bleach. The main reason we use a dechlor product it to deal with chloramine and to speed the process.

For those who say they don't want to use chemicals in their tank, they miss the point that water is hydrogen and oxygen and those ARE chemicals, too.


----------



## theyangman (Nov 5, 2011)

Water is a chemical, hydrogen and oxygen are elements.



if I recall chemistry class properly.


----------



## Mbunaaddict (Oct 28, 2010)

I have a question about curing driftwood if i may chime in:

PfunMo, I recently picked up some great peices of Dwood on our local beach. They were really dried out so i think they will be perfect for my tank. I went to the store and got some regular bleach that had only 2 ingredients so i thought it would be safe to use. I got the OK from the girlfriend to hijack the bathtub for the next 24hrs and began the soak last night. Once it has soaked for 24hrs i plan on soaking again with fresh water, is this correct?

I was also curious if i could use some dechlor to help speed the process of removing the bleach?

I also plan to attach the Dwood to peices of rock. Would slate be a good choice? And what type of screws would i use for this?


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I go with whatever time fits best for removing the bleach. I use just the plain stuff as it is cheaper and I don't need the added stuff for smelling like lemon!!! For removing it, I normally take it out of the soak and rinse it with a hose. Don't drip the mix on your clothes as it may be strong enough to make white spots or holes. I rinse it to dilute the mix and it also makes them less slippery to handle. From there it is usually set out to dry. A good hot spot in the sun dries it quicker but time will do it just as well but slower. It usually takes about as long to dry out as it does to soak in. Since my reason for soaking is to clean it, I usually only soak overnight or so. 
Another way that works as well is to add dechlor products of some type. I don't because I'm never in that much rush. I'm gradually working up a busy work job building these and have 10-15 projects going at a time so speed is not a big thing.

NOTE: These are not something I ship and sell. I never intended it to be a business but fun to do.

Slate works fine if it of a type that drills and cuts easy. I use limestone as it is really easy to find here in the different shapes I like. Slate can range from nice to work to almost impossible to drill or cut without breaking. Try scraping the back side of a piece to judge how hard it might be. Any type screws that fit will do fine. The worry about rust only applies if you are concerned with how long they will last. Rust does not bother fish. I use shiny plated screws but that is because people like them better!


----------



## Mbunaaddict (Oct 28, 2010)

Living less than 5 mins from a beach i could never bring myself to buy driftwood. hahaha

So are you advising that 24hrs is more than enough time to soak in the bleach? I am just soaking it to clean/kill anything that might harm my fish.

And time is of the essence because i live in a apartment and my girlfirend would go crazy if i had things laying around for a while.

would you suggest another soak in Freshwater and declor or just rinse and lay out to dry/evaporate? what would be the fastest to remove the bleach from the Dwood


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Don't use a lot of bleach. A half cup or so will be way plenty in 30-50 gallons.

Yes, 24 hours is plenty to soak for disinfection. That is what health departments recommend for getting through hard shelled cysts and such. Beatles, fungus and soft things die much quicker than things like snails who close up to resist. For the quickest, flushing and rinsing with water and changing the water is the quickest. In that case I would recommend double the dechlor you might normally use.

The thing about chlorine that people often miss it that it reacts very quickly with many things. Wood is one. When the chlorine meets up with the wood it reacts and changes the wood and at the same time it changes the chlorine so that you wind up with two items which are no longer the same. Iron is one of the easy things to think about this reaction. Leave bleach or chlorine near iron and you get the chlorine gassing off and reacting with the metal. If you have the right amount of metal and the right amount of chlorine, you wind up with iron oxide (rust) as the main thing left.

Since it is assumed we won't use enough bleach to totally eat the driftwood, the chlorine will react with the wood and no longer be chlorine. It is no longer chlorine because it reacts so quickly with any wood it can get to. That is why the idea that chlorine might soak in and not come out is folly. It is like trying to keep fire in a paper box. If there is enough fire, there will be no box left. If you soak wood and there is wood left, the chlorine is pretty well used up. Rinsing will dilute any little pockets, nooks or crannies where bleach might be for some reason. 
Once it is diluted enough, it is the same as the water from the tap. It may have some minute amount of chlorine left so when in doubt, it is worth letting it dry and blow away or treating it with dechlor.

There are test strips to test for chlorine but I have never used them. It would be like running a test for fire after it burned the box, you sprayed water on it, and let it cool. You just don't find much left.


----------



## Mbunaaddict (Oct 28, 2010)

> Don't use a lot of bleach. A half cup or so will be way plenty in 30-50 gallons.


I guess i used too much bleach. I used 2 cups in the tub. I had no idea.

Will this effect the rest of the curing process?

I just emptied the tub and i am about to fill again with clean water. I also plan on adding dechlor


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Not really a problem as such. It makes the wood more likely to turn white. It might, in theory, react with the wood slightly deeper. Like a 1/16 inch rather than a 1/32 inch?? What you are dealing with is bleach which is 5-6% straight from the jug. You add that to 30-50 gallons of water and it is pretty dilute but plenty strong to do what we need. If you drain that water there will be a small amount of bleach left hanging on the wood. Each time you add 30-50 gallons of water, the mix gets much more diluted until there really is not much more bleach left than our drinking water has. Then we can treat it just the same as our normal water change water.

If we had only chlorine in our water, we could just let it set overnight and gas off. That was all I did back in the '70's before we had to start dealing with chloramine. It does not gas off as quickly and we need to use dechlor products to get rid of chloramine.


----------



## ChadRamsey (Mar 12, 2010)

i am probably 3 weeks away from setting up my tank. so about 3 weeks ago i started soaking the drift would that i plan to add to it. I have 2 rather large pieces that i put in a LARGE bin and filled it with water. Nothing else. After a few days of soaking the water was rather brown, so i dumped the water and added new water. I continued the process whenever the water discolored. Its been a full week since i changed the water and the water is crystal clear. I will only change it now every few days to ensure the it doesn't stagnate.


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Sounds like you are on the way to success. Sometimes it clears quickly and others may never clear in months. One way to help avoid tannins is getting wood that is totally dry. If you cut the end off and the wood is pretty much the same color all the way through, it will rarely color the water. There will often be a layer about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch around the outside that is different but the less color difference there is, the better your odds.

Like the old coach used to say, " If you don't get a foul once in a while, you may not be playing hard enough."


----------



## Mbunaaddict (Oct 28, 2010)

Heres my finished product. 3 peices of Dwood, 1 peice of slate (which turned out to be very easy to drill), and 6 rust and corrosion proof screws.










Next to a 18" ruler


















Now i just plan to let it dry for several days before i place in my tank.

What do you guys think?


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Looks fine to me. I assume you like it as well. That is one of the really nice things about finding it and doing it up your way. While we may never find it exactly the way we want it, it will almost always be closer than what we would find in a shop.

I love the price and we all need the exercise!! It is one of the really good excuses I have for going out and wandering through the woods. Otherwise I might be accused of wasting time.


----------



## Mbunaaddict (Oct 28, 2010)

How can you tell when its ready for the tank or when the bleach is out.

I soaked in clean water with dechlor for the same time as i soaked in bleach water.

then i let airdry for the same amount of time again.

Do you go by smell? Cause i dont smell bleach anymore.


----------



## jd_7655 (Jul 23, 2004)

I've been keeping fish for over 20 years. I have found no use for bleach what so ever. There are plenty of other alternatives. Bleach is flat out dangerous and if used wrong will harm your fish. I see no reason why the driftwood pictured above would need to be soaked in bleach. If it's dried out there is nothing aquatic living on it. It would be far safer to put the wood in a bucket and fill it with boiling water to let soak for a while. Telling someone it's ok to soak driftwood in bleach is flat out irresponsible.


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

IME bleach has it's uses in the aquarium and is safe to use, if only because we have dechlor to deal with any excess...in a separate bucket of course.


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I'm sorry to hear you have such a firm idea of bleach and that it is so far off base. If you check around with the folks who have been doing this for a long time, you will find very few that find bleach a huge danger. It is often in the water we use to fill the tanks. It is like almost all things we use. It requires the proper caution. The same is true of electricity or boiling water. If it is misused, it can be a problem.

For how to tell when the bleach is gone, there are a number of ways to deal with the chlorine which is the part that concerns us. It is the chlorine which will burn the gills of fish if it is strong enough and they are exposed long enough. We deal with bleach (chlorine) in the water we use all the time by treating it to remove the chemicals. A second way is to let the decor item dry totally. As the chlorine reacts with the wood, some of it is changed chemically and is no longer chlorine. What is left will become a gas and blow away as it dries. Chlorine can not stay in wood and come out later to kill fish. One of the properties of chlorine is that it reacts very quickly with many different things. Chlorine can not stay in wood without reacting with it. At that point it is no longer chlorine! A test that is often used is the smell. If the chlorine is not smelled, it is no longer gassing off for our nose to pick up.

I have found in discussions here on the forum that there can be a smell that seems like chlorine left when we use it to remove a heavy algae cover from rocks. Even after the item is totally dry it can smell but what the smell really is, I'm not sure. In those cases, I have pitched the rocks out just because I don't like to take chances.


----------



## Fishy_Cichlid (Aug 4, 2011)

Logically very correct. Do our clothes smell of chlorine after a wash, NO. I recently cleaned/cleaning my driftwood with liquid bleach. Left it out in the sun for 2 days. No longer smells of anything. It has become white in color though :lol: :lol: 
And yes, my DW would sink before I took it out after bleaching and today I notice that its again floating in water. Maybe the wood needs to soak up fully before sinking.


----------



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I often find the bleach makes wood white when it soaks but after it goes in the tank and soaks up water it often returns to normal wood color. It make take some time. A week or a month?

I get a giggle sometimes when I hear how worried people are about bleach around their fish. They don't stop to think that their mother for years has washed their underwear in bleach. Think what we keep in them and never worry about the bleach!!! If bleach could soak in and some way not come out until later many of us would have bigger problems than dead fish!


----------

