Bog Wood.

[Nick16]

i have a piece of bog wood but i have tried scrubbing it for over an hour and it just wont clean up. it just turns the water brown like muddy water. what can i do becuase i seems like it wont stop making the water brown but when i just soak it nothingt comes off it. i dont want to stick it in the tank and just hope because that is a risk. any help? thanks

 

[Davo86]

i have a piece of bog wood but i have tried scrubbing it for over an hour and it just wont clean up. it just turns the water brown like muddy water. what can i do becuase i seems like it wont stop making the water brown but when i just soak it nothingt comes off it. i dont want to stick it in the tank and just hope because that is a risk. any help? thanks

you'll need to weigh it down in a bucket of boiling water for a few days to get all the tannings out of the wood, unless you like the tannings in your tank, in which case just add the wood now, its not harmful and most fish will feel more comfortable in it,

 

[raptorrex]

i have a piece of bog wood but i have tried scrubbing it for over an hour and it just wont clean up. it just turns the water brown like muddy water. what can i do becuase i seems like it wont stop making the water brown but when i just soak it nothingt comes off it. i dont want to stick it in the tank and just hope because that is a risk. any help? thanks

you'll need to weigh it down in a bucket of boiling water for a few days to get all the tannings out of the wood, unless you like the tannings in your tank, in which case just add the wood now, its not harmful and most fish will feel more comfortable in it,

my thoughts exactly

 

[tyyrlym]

What you're seeing are the tannins leaching out of the wood. There are two ways to deal with them.

One, weigh the wood down in a bucket of water and leave it. When the water gets to looking like tea dump it out and refill it. Keep this up until the water is still clear after several days and the wood doesn't float. This can take a while, as in a week or more.

Option two is to boil it for several hours. This speeds up the leaching process. Boil it until the water look like tea. Dump the water and boil it again until the water looks like tea again. Keep it up until the water is clear after boiling for a while. Has the added benefit of killing everything that might be on the wood.

My preference, put it in and enjoy the golden water. If you have any amazonian fish they'll love it.

 

[minxfishy]

Another option after the boiling is to place it in a dishwasher on high temp (without rinse aid/salt or cleaning tablet) that helps a lot too.

 

[Nick16]

but when i put it in boiling water nothing comes out. i know about the tea colouring stuff but this is different. when i scrub it it comes off with not tea coloured water but more brown (muddy like) but when its submerged it doesnt leak. its wierd. i dont know whether to take a risk and put it into my tank

 

[tyyrlym]

How long are you submerging it? The tannins won't be immediately apparent.

The scrubbing sounds more like dirt or actually removing parts of the wood. What kind of wood is it and where did you get it from?

 

[Gilli]

Do yourself a favour dump it and look on Ebay. Sellers sell bogwood on there already pre- soaked so you wont have a problem. I bought mine on there with a live plant attached which looks fantastic and my water is crystal clear!

 

[Nick16]

i got it with a new tank. i soaked it for around 12 hours and no tea colured water! so im dubious whats causing it so i will probs get a new piece. it was nice looking tho!!! i just alarmed me when nothing was leaching out but when i scrubed it was browny water coming off

 

[cli83]

I dived coniston water for my bog wood found the lump I wanted got it home and I use a wire brush on mine give it a really good scrub with it this should remove any loose on it and any deep dirt that light scrubbing and soaking wont remove. Works a treat for me thogh doesn't remove the tinning obviously but I like that in my water more of a natural look hope this helps.
chris