I just bought a nice piece of mopani wood from my local LFS. It was labled as a "small" piece and it clearly wasn't so I could resist that steal. Got a largish piece of wood and saved 20$ on it! Now my question is what is the best way to clean this fella? I'm not worried about tannins darkening my water but I don't want so many that it will drastically effect my water parameters. I've read somewhere that you can put it in a pre risned dishwasher with no soaps or anything and that it works, but it IS possible for me to soak it in a bucket, I'm just overly excited to add it to my tank and attatch some plants to it!
mopani!
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I use quite a lot of Mopani and it can leach for years.
Some boil it, that will also kill anything nasty which may be lurking.
Most of mine to big to boil, so I use a large plastic tub to soak them in, and every week when I do water changes in my tanks I use the old tank water to replace the darkened water with.
I currently have some rather big pieces soaking (biggest must be close to a meter in length), some of them will go into tanks over the next few weeks.
I try to do this for a few months if possible, but even then large pieces will still leach.
Water changes over time sorts that out, or else if I want clear water quickly I use Purigen in my filters.
Have two sets of Purigen, one in the filter and one which I regenerate, swap them when I do quarterly filter cleans.
Post some fotos of your piece...
Some boil it, that will also kill anything nasty which may be lurking.
Most of mine to big to boil, so I use a large plastic tub to soak them in, and every week when I do water changes in my tanks I use the old tank water to replace the darkened water with.
I currently have some rather big pieces soaking (biggest must be close to a meter in length), some of them will go into tanks over the next few weeks.
I try to do this for a few months if possible, but even then large pieces will still leach.
Water changes over time sorts that out, or else if I want clear water quickly I use Purigen in my filters.
Have two sets of Purigen, one in the filter and one which I regenerate, swap them when I do quarterly filter cleans.
Post some fotos of your piece...
I tend to do three things when it comes to getting wood ready for tanks.
First - I pour boiling water over the entire piece of wood, including the nooks and crannies, use full kettle of water. This helps to kill any potential nasties on the wood.
Second - I use a wire brush, used solely for wood, nothing else, and scrub over the entire wood, taking off any loose bits and dirt. Then I pour another kettle full of hot water over the entire wood again just to clean it up a bit and doubly making sure potential nasties are killed off.
Third - I put the wood in either a small spare tank or a plastic container with a simple filter or pump to push the water around. And leave it there for at least 2 - 3 weeks, sometimes more especially if the wood is floating and needds to be waterlogged before adding to tank. I sometimes put in a large weight, usually a small clean bottle filled with sand and put on top of the wood to ensure entire piece is submerged.
During the time the soaking wood is in the tank / container you may see some white tufts of soft fungi / algae type of growth. Simply take the wood out and wirebrush this off and rinse and return to tank, repeat as neccessary. This stuff wont actually do much harm in the tank or towards livestock at all, just a bit unsightly is all and will naturally go away after a period of time but i find green algae will tend to grow in these areas hence I scrub off the white stuff to help prevent this.
I never boil wood, simply because its kind of a fuitless excercise imho and will degrade the wood faster.
First - I pour boiling water over the entire piece of wood, including the nooks and crannies, use full kettle of water. This helps to kill any potential nasties on the wood.
Second - I use a wire brush, used solely for wood, nothing else, and scrub over the entire wood, taking off any loose bits and dirt. Then I pour another kettle full of hot water over the entire wood again just to clean it up a bit and doubly making sure potential nasties are killed off.
Third - I put the wood in either a small spare tank or a plastic container with a simple filter or pump to push the water around. And leave it there for at least 2 - 3 weeks, sometimes more especially if the wood is floating and needds to be waterlogged before adding to tank. I sometimes put in a large weight, usually a small clean bottle filled with sand and put on top of the wood to ensure entire piece is submerged.
During the time the soaking wood is in the tank / container you may see some white tufts of soft fungi / algae type of growth. Simply take the wood out and wirebrush this off and rinse and return to tank, repeat as neccessary. This stuff wont actually do much harm in the tank or towards livestock at all, just a bit unsightly is all and will naturally go away after a period of time but i find green algae will tend to grow in these areas hence I scrub off the white stuff to help prevent this.
I never boil wood, simply because its kind of a fuitless excercise imho and will degrade the wood faster.
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