Is it necessary to boil driftwood before placing in aquarium?

[Eric G]

Hi, I just got a small piece of driftwood for my clown plecos. Do I need to boil the driftwood to steralize it? If so, how long? Anything else that should be done for preparation before placing in the aquarium? Also will I have to worry about a PH drop from the driftwood, it is small maybe 3" by 5".

Thanks,

Eric

[Guppysnail]

No. Just rinse it under hot water and it will be good to go. Boiling is more to remove some of the tannins for tanks you do not want a tannin look. The tannins are good for your tank and will eventually be removed from water changes over time. 

[Flipper]

I have a "dwarf" Clown Pleco (about 2 inches long, fully grown).  His name is Bashful and he loves his driftwood.  He lives behind a piece of wood, therefore his name Bashful.  😉  He does come out to scrape tank walls.  Hard to get his picture.

I have spiderwood which just doesn't have that soft layer of decay needed to munch on.  My malaysian driftwood and mopani wood are much better to munch on.  I wish you the best!

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I’ve never boiled any of my wood, but I’ve definitely soaked it in 5 gallon buckets until it’s waterlogged and goes through the “fungus” phase so it doesn’t have to do that in the tank. 

[Scapexghost]

Its best practice to soak in water but that could take weeks

[Miranda Marie]

I soak mine in a plastic tub prior to adding to the tank, because it tends to get *disgusting* in the first couple weeks. When I got my latest batch of wood, I put it in the tub for 2 weeks to water log, and when we took the lid off to take it out and rinse it, the water smelled like death itself and was filled with dark brown globs of biofilm.

This was aquarium-specific, sand blasted wood that was smooth and pretty when it first went in. When we took it out, it looked and smelled like a bog had made its home there. 

All that said, there's a decent chance it wouldn't have gotten so disgusting in a developed ecosystem vs a bucket of regular tap water, but I don't think I'd be brave enough to just toss the wood in the display tank and hope that's the correct assumption LOL.

[Milliardo Peacecraft]

It's not totally necessary but I've found it convenient for killing off anything that maybe on it and it helps waterlog the wood faster so it sinks.

[JChristophersAdventures]

It would depend on where I sourced it as to how I would handle it... If it came directly from a local river or pond, then I would at the very least soak it out in a sunny location and would likely also add some hydrogen peroxide (at least in the initial soak... might have to change the water out a few times). If I sourced it from a supplier that routinely deals in it, then I would likely initially put it in some hot water just to remove stuff from the surface (and to know any tannin release issues there might be).

I look at tannins differently in a display tank (want wood, but few tannins) versus a breeding tank (soft water fish, yes... hard water, not so much). I wouldn't actually throw it in boiling water, but I might go to the trouble to heat the water to boiling before pouring in for the initial soak, keeping in mind that my major goal is to remove any unseen contaminants that might negatively impact the fish.