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Mopani Wood Soup


xXInkedPhoenixX
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@Streetwise I only boiled it an hour mostly to make sure it would stay down, be sanitized, I can easily removed jagged edges to make it safe for my baby Otos- and to admittedly get some tannins out- holy moly. I'm not sure I'm ready to go THAT dark like you. 😉 Plus they are going to the LFS eventually...those parameters would not be theirs.

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On 12/28/2021 at 7:38 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

@Streetwise I only boiled it an hour mostly to make sure it would stay down, be sanitized, I can easily removed jagged edges to make it safe for my baby Otos- and to admittedly get some tannins out- holy moly. I'm not sure I'm ready to go THAT dark like you. 😉 Plus they are going to the LFS eventually...those parameters would not be theirs.

mopani will stay down. it is a very dense wood. lots of woods need a good soak, not mopani, it goes down and stays there.

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@xXInkedPhoenixX I'm not as knowledgeable as Streetwise, but I have picked up all kinds of rock from outside and scrubbed them (hand or clean brush), put them in a 5 gallon bucket for a couple days to make sure nothing changes, then plopped them in a tank.  I'll bet you could go one step further, and add a fish to the bucket with a plant and make sure it survives a week.  We picked up a branch from the side of a lake, soaked it for a month - never did sink, placed it in a tank where we had to brace it to keep it under water - its been a year and it still hasn't sank, but the fish like it.

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On 12/28/2021 at 9:18 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

I hesitate to use anything that's not in an aquarium store.....which is dumb I know because I'm waaaaaaaaaaay overcharged.  I won't even use the lava rock outside for fear of pesticides. It's more about my bad luck than anything really.

That's me, too. I'm aiming for being Calmed by Fish, not Grieved by Bad Luck. Those are very different goals. 

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On 12/28/2021 at 8:13 PM, lefty o said:

mopani will stay down. it is a very dense wood. lots of woods need a good soak, not mopani, it goes down and stays there.

I’ve gotten small mopani pieces that didn’t stay down without soaking.  I bought a box of assorted small pieces and about half didn’t sink.  Another 1/4 sank after only a couple hours but it took days for the last 1/4 to sink.  I can’t be too disappointed, they’re pretty pieces and I wasn’t in a hurry to use them for anything specific. 

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I've seen lots of post's online about Soak wood X number of hours or Y number of Days before putting in tank, but it's all over the place. My tried and true method is, 5gal bucket in the garage. Toss the wood in an come back in a week.
Water too brown? dump and refill, repeat until a future week has gone by, and an acceptable amount of "tea" is leached in the water.
The wood will go in the tank when it's ready.
 

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So the wood went in the tank (no pics cause I have no light yet. It's dark in there even without tannins). 

Not having a place to store it I used all the tannin water on several houseplants including a dip for my airplants, and all of my succulents outside that only get watered once a month. Here are several recipients (not all pictured): 

Resized_20211229_154518.jpg

Edited by xXInkedPhoenixX
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@xXInkedPhoenixX; I wondered about what woods were safe to use in an aquarium so that I wouldn't have to pay big bucks at my LFS, so I went on google to find out. Soft woods like the Pines, Spruces, and the like are toxic to our fish, but Oak, Sycamore, and others are safe, but can't remember the others that were listed. Since I have an Oak tree in my back yard, and I have to pick up broken limbs anyway, I immediately went out, picked up a limb, broke into pieces small enough to fit a 29 G and 2 10 G tanks. I left the bark on them, didn't boil them, dropped them in the tanks, and they sank after a couple of days. I drained enough water so I could reach in to arrange them the way I want them and replaced the water. My Otos took to them even before they sank, if I want to see my Otos now, I look at the wood first.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

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@xXInkedPhoenixX; I'm the type of person that loves experimentation, research, and knowledge. Did you know that Spider wood is made from the roots of Rhododendron, Mountain Laurel, and Azalea bushes? Why should I pay big bucks at an LFS for a small piece of Spider wood when I can go out and dig up a Mountain Laurel, cut off the roots, and trim it down to the size I want it to be. I'm good to go as long as I don't dig it up in our Nations' newest National Park, but there are so many around here that I wouldn't have to worry about that. The only things I'd have to worry about is snakes and bears, I'm not scared of snakes, but bears...

  

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@xXInkedPhoenixX; That's great, you and your Otos' are going to love it. You once told me that you wanted to get a Hillstream loach, did you ever find one? I found one online today for $16, but they wouldn't ship it this time of year and I thought "Why advertise it for sale now if they're not willing to ship it now?" I decided that I no longer want a Hillstream loach, besides, they eat fish eggs. Just thought you'd like to know.  

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