Driftwood prep

[Ender97]

I got several new pieces of driftwood from a reputable supplier. The setup guide says that I should presoak, boil, and then resoak the wood before introducing it to my tank. I got the wood not only for the aesthetic of it but because the tannin is a good way of helping control how hard my water is.  Is soaking like this going to release most of the tannin that I need in the tank? The current water hardness is greater then 300 and I am trying to bring it down to hopefully introduce some new verities of fish.

[Biotope Biologist]

Nope tannins will slowly be released from the wood for quite awhile often staining your water with that lovely tea color. Other ways to soften water is by adding other pre-boiled organics and letting them decay. This is naturally how streams and rivers become acidic. 

 

Also you will likely get a white film on your wood when it's first introduced this is normal and a bacterial colony that will go away after awhile.

[Betsy]

@Jungle Fan recently gave me some really good advice about prepping driftwood (I was/am struggling with some biofilm on my driftwood)!!  It might be helpful to you, too!:

All types of wood can get biofilm depending on if they've been pre-soaked, density of wood, and temperatures. Sometimes they bloom, sometimes they don't. Over the years I've had Malaysian driftwood, Pacific driftwood, Mopani, spiderwood, Manzanita, Amazon wood all got it to some degree, sometimes worse, sometimes less. I now always pre-soak the wood. The Mopani because it releases tons of tannin over a long period, the spiderwood because it takes forever not to float anymore. Usually I place either a rock, or a large piece of Mopani on Spiderwood because Mopani doesn't float. I don't stress over biofilm; snails, shrimp, and all types of catfish love it. If There is something in the wood I want to get rid off I don't boil it, I soaked it in a bucket with water and hydrogen peroxide, it kills the germs and the hydrogen peroxide turns into water over about two days. After that I rinse the wood off, let it dry in the sun, and either let soak some more in water, or place it in the tank, depending on if it floats, or not, and tannin. Boiling destroys the surface structure of the wood and it rots faster than it normally would. Some of the wood in my 75 gallon is now 29 to 30 years old.

[Ender97]

Thank you