The Puffer Forum

I have a piece of aquarium drift wood for my 55 gallon tank and have been soaking it in water for 2 weeks with daily water changes or so but the water in the bucket is still yellowish.
If i add the wood to my tank, what will it change? ph? water clarity?
I have two A. Silus as well as a peacock eel that i see ever few days in the tank that are all doing fine and love their environment. The piece of wood is roughly 12"x 8" x 16"
Any ideas? thoughts?

Your pH will go down a bit, and the water will be a light tea color for a while, but may go away. might not though.
Be sure you boil/bake it to make sure you don't add any nasties to the tank.

I have had mixed results, but sometimes boiling with aquarium salt and water helps...

I do not have a pot big enough to boil this piece of wood. Would just putting it in the oven by itself work? If so, how long and how hot of temperature should i bake it for?

Baking won't drive out tannins, just make it drier and take longer to sink. It's a good sterilization procedure for new wood that may still have saps/resins, but boiling is definately the fastest way to cleanse driftwood - any chance of borrowing a pot?

I added the wood yesterday and it looks great and didn't change the water color. I havn't checked the pH but i'm sure it went down a bit but the puffers seem to be doing fine and maybe a little lower pH is good for them. It was up around 8 before the addition of the wood.

The pH and your water color will change very slowly.. as long as you're doing your weekly water changes you probably will barely even notice it

great! yea it looks like it hasn't changed the water temperature. I like it. I have added some java ferms plants to it, but i don't know how to get them to stick onto the wood. i hear you can get them to grow on the wood somehow

Tie them down with thread. By the time the thread deteriorates, the roots should hold it there.

thread like twine? or like sewing thread?

like sewing thread.
I think it's cotton, right?

I usually try to find a "spinter" in the wood and wedge those sorts of plants into them. Years ago I tried thread, fishing line, even staples at one point.. My biggest problem with thread is that yes, it will eventually break and I caught my fish yanking on it trying to eat it, which obviously worried me.

I've just given up on tying it down, but the last batch of driftwood I bought I made sure had a "rough" enough look to it that I could easily stuff things into cracks and holes and get it to stay.

If your wood is smoother, and laying more flat, I've just taken a small rock (river stone) and weighted down moss.. it will attach itself eventually.

ok great! thanks mjay, I was worrying about the same thing, i wouldn't want my puffer chewing on string.

Adding salt helps remove a lot of the tannings but to be honest ive always given it a quick wash and soaked for a while and put in, i dont mind the tannings