# Mopani Wood



## Maranatha! (May 29, 2009)

We have a small piece of Mopani wood in our 125 gallon aquarium which is in the process of a fishless cycle. We're having such HUGE problems with some wierd clear to milky white slime growing all over it... it's getting REALLY thick, too! EWWW!

We soaked it for a few days until it didn't turn the water brown, we've poured boiling water over it twice (it's a little too big for us to boil... need a bigger pot! ), but STILL there's this wierd slimey stuff covering it! Anyone know what this nasty stuff is?? How we can get rid of it? It's REALLY gross! :lol:

In His love,


----------



## cichlidfeesh (Apr 6, 2009)

Same thing happened to my drift wood. It went away after a few weeks or so. The thing about natural drift wood is that it is beautiful but it takes a lot of patience


----------



## BRANT13 (Feb 18, 2009)

it wont harm anything in ure tank u got any plecos...i think they love this stuff


----------



## Cook.MN (Mar 11, 2008)

Went away after 3-4 weeks in a pleco-less tank, GT fry seemed to like to nibble on it


----------



## Comic Sans (Apr 21, 2009)

Yep it will just disappear. My mopani is still slimy on the underside, but the visible stuff went away within a week.


----------



## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

Yep, pleco's help, or you could just hit it with a scour pad every so often. It'll go away after a bit.

-Ryan


----------



## Maranatha! (May 29, 2009)

We are doing a fishless cycle on the tank the wood was in and, this afternoon when I checked our ammonia levels, I about had a fit! They should have been down to like .25 as it has for the past two days, (I put 4 capfuls in yesterday afternoon to bring it up to 3ppm) but instead, they were STILL at 3ppm! I was completely mystified... and pretty bummed! Then, I thought, what if that slime gave off ammonia?! I'll bet that's what caused my high ammonia readings! What do you guys think?

In His love,


----------



## BRANT13 (Feb 18, 2009)

its alot easier to get answers if u stick to one post..


----------



## Maranatha! (May 29, 2009)

BRANT13 said:


> its alot easier to get answers if u stick to one post..


I've noticed that a lot of people ONLY read one board. I had originally posted about this here in General Aquaria but then figured it would be better suited for the Decoration board. However, I seem to have gotten more of a response to the thread here than on the Decoration board. Sorry if I inconvenienced anyone.

In His love,


----------



## Comic Sans (Apr 21, 2009)

I seriously doubt your wood had anything to do with the ammonia. What test method do you use? Could be a bad strip.


----------



## Maranatha! (May 29, 2009)

Comic Sans said:


> I seriously doubt your wood had anything to do with the ammonia. What test method do you use? Could be a bad strip.


I used SEVERAL strips. :lol: We're using Jungle Quick Dip strips. I don't think it was the wood that caused the ammonia, I'm thinking it MIGHT be the gross slime that was growing on the wood, though.... maybe? :-?

In His love,


----------



## Comic Sans (Apr 21, 2009)

maybe, but i doubt it. Strips are notoriously unreliable. Has the ammonia dropped since the weird reading or still showing as 3ppm?


----------



## Maranatha! (May 29, 2009)

Comic Sans said:


> maybe, but i doubt it. Strips are notoriously unreliable. Has the ammonia dropped since the weird reading or still showing as 3ppm?


It hadn't dropped the last time we checked, but we haven't checked today. We usually check around noonish... I'll let ya know. 

In His love,


----------



## Maranatha! (May 29, 2009)

Well, if you've read the Set up board, you might have noticed that my ammonia problems did, indeed, go away (of course, I also removed the wood.... so it might be that, might not. LOL) 
We set the wood outside to dry. I took it back in around 3pm or so and scrubbed it under warm running water, then stuck it back outside to dry. I brought it back in at 6pm or so and boiled the snot out of it. :lol: I boiled it on one end, turned it around and boiled the other end (it was a bit too big to fit in the pot), then I turned it over and boiled one end, turned it around and boiled the other end. Then I set it on a towel on top of our book case to dry. If that turkey has anything living on it now, I'm going to be   We decided, just to be safe, to put it into the 72 gallon (where we have two albino bristlenose plecos) instead of the 125. :lol:

We were very discouraged... it looked like we wouldn't have our tank cycled and ready for our fish with all the set backs we had (our cycle fish got ich, then the wierd ammonia readings after it had gone down to .25 went back up to 3ppm without us adding any and stayed there for 2 days, etc....), on Sunday the nitrites were off the scale and the nitrates were 180ppm! We figured there was NO WAY that tank was going to be ready. We were planning to put the new fish in our 72 gallon bow-front (we were trying to figure out what in the WORLD to do with the larger fish that had been living there for almost 5 years). Well, at about 2am I checked the water again and the nitrite was down to THREE ppm! MIRACULOUS! By the next morning it was down to ONE ppm! By 6pm Monday evening, the water was 0 nitrites and 20 nitrates... PERFECT! =D> Our fish arrived at 9:40 Tuesday morning to PERFECT water chemistry; they've been 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 20 nitrates ever since! 

In His love,


----------

