driftwood troubles

[Slow Cheetah]

hey

well i had a small piece of driftwood in my 10 gal tank a few months back. If any people remember, i had a epidemic of 4 cories dying in the tank, and the fighting fish later getting fungal infections. Since i removed the wood, the fungal infections healed on the fighting fish within 2 weeks and has been fine ever since.

would this have been causing issues in the tank?
does anyone think it may have been diseased or was jut lowering the pH of the water, which the fish didn't like?

p.s i dont think i boiled the wood, i think i jut rinsed it. it was a long time ago now so i cannot be sure.

any opinions greatly appreciated!

[MCHRKiller]

If you got the wood from a local stream and didnt dinsinfect it(IE boiling it) it could have introduced disease into the tank. Fungal spores are constantly present in your aquarium, they become an issue and effect fish when they are either stressed, diseased or weakend by other factors such as old age or poor breeding. One thing that could have came from the wood is it wasnt a hardwood ment for aquariums so it started to break down and cause your water parms to go south, another explaination could have been the wood contained some sort of toxin that killed off some of your fish. If things have improved since removing it, I would just leave it out. Find a nice piece of wood at your LFS or online intended for the aquarium use....it is honestly your safest option.

[Twe3k]

the piece of driftwood can definitely lower the PH.. but i honestly think its how you introduce the driftwood that gave you those problems.. i would always play it safe and boil the piece of wood that way it will kill any kind of disease or parasites.. also if you have a big piece of driftwood that will not fit in a pan.. scrub it well and then rinse it with boiling water.. these few little steps can help eliminated bigger problems such as fungus, parasites, disease that can possibly kill off you tank..

[Slow Cheetah]

thanks for the replies

i did in fact buy the wood from a aquarium store, but i am slightly suss to wards it as it did have a light later that broke away from the surface of the wood when i touched it.

[Northernguy]

I would definately boil that peice.
If its dried out you can sand or scrape off the top layer.

All the wood I have is from lakes out here.I have never had a problem caused by any of it.
Its very possible to get a contaminated peice from a store.Not all of them are packaged properly.Most I have seen have half the plastic removed while on display in the store.