Driftwood coloring my water

**sweeneyc** · 12-23-2012, 03:18 AM

I bought two pieces of driftwood. The first one I bought a few weeks ago and placed in my tank and it did not leach tannins into my water. But this second piece I bought leached the tannins and turned my water a yellowish color.

The first piece I believe had already leached free at the LFS. my question is this, how do I get the driftwood to color my water?

**mojosodope** · 12-23-2012, 03:29 AM

Boiling driftwood for 1- 2 hours releases whatever tannins are left. That 'color' will lower your ph significantly unless your water has a high buffering capacity so it is recommended you properly sanitize your driftwood to release whatever tannins and contaminants it may have before you put it in your tank.

**sweeneyc** · 12-23-2012, 05:41 AM

how do you boil driftwood for an hour? in a large pot? I'd hate to use one of my cooking pots to treat the driftwood.... seems kind of nasty.

**Lady Hobbs** · 12-23-2012, 09:31 AM

Some wood leech more tannins than others. But tannins do not hurt the tank anyway. Normal water changes and it will stop leeching before too long. But you can throw the wood in a large trash can and changed the water periodically for a couple weeks if you want to do it that way or your wood is too large to boil. I always just threw it in the tank.

**Southernfryedyankee** · 12-31-2012, 11:20 PM

I have always boiled DW in my large pot, its not gonna hurt ya.

**luke77** · 01-01-2013, 12:12 AM

I don't boil it I usually soak it in got water for a few days. However hot it comes out of the tap is how hot I use. I change the water about every 4 to 6 hours.

**steeler1** · 01-01-2013, 04:34 AM

I just boil water and pour it over the wood in my sink. Do this a couple of times and let it cool off before adding to the tanks.

**talldutchie** · 02-02-2013, 06:45 PM

Colouration of the water bothers fishkeepers a lot more than it does most fish. In fact quite a few popular South-American and Asian species will really enjoy it.

Filtering over carbon also reduces tannins.

**korith** · 02-02-2013, 11:36 PM

Another way to do it is to find a container that you can fill up with water and put the driftwood in there. Depending on how quick the water colours up, keep changing out the water. Can sometimes take weeks or months to get rid of majority. Like the others said tannins don't harm your fish, we just might find it as sightly for viewing our tanks.