Could driftwood ever be toxic??

[Sky042]

I'm still trying to dechipher the mystery of some of my fish dieing. I had a large chucnk of driftwood in my tank. It had soaked for nearly a month prior to going in the tank and 95% of the tanins were out of it. Is there anything else the driftwood could leach that could cause fish death. I'm basically grasping at straws here trying to figure out why I'm slowly losing tetra's and other small fish.

 

[Teelie]

What type of wood was it? Offhand I can't think of anything in typical driftwood that would cause deaths, especially after being soaked and leeched.

 

[Fish Buddy]

Was there any sort of markings -wounds, fungus, ect. on the fish -that could have caused the death. Check your water conditions (if you haven't) maybe amonia or other toxic chemicals were the cause. As far as I know, bog wood for tropical fish aquarium use is not toxic to fish. But do you know what kind of wood it was?

 

[noelberg]

was the driftwood treated (boiled or treated with meds) before you added it to the tank? it could have been harboring bacteria and other nasty stuff if it sat in a bucket for a month.

HTH

 

[Sky042]

was the driftwood treated (boiled or treated with meds) before you added it to the tank? it could have been harboring bacteria and other nasty stuff if it sat in a bucket for a month.

HTH

The driftwood was boiled before being put in the tank. I have a thread in the tropical fish emergency section where I stated my water params

PH 6.8
NH3/4 0
NO2 0
NO3 10
GH 10dGH/179ppm

 

[impur]

Its possible. I got my driftwood from a local creek and boiled it. After having it in the tank for about a year i noticed some grey stringy mucus accumulating in my gravel. On the underside of the wood there were white stringy things growing. I removed the wood and have since vacuumed out all the crap. I won't be putting wood into any of my tanks again.

 

[Teelie]

Don't let one bad experience kill your interest in it. Most of the wood you find at an LFS or LPS is already treated or at least safe from fungus like that.

 

[Fish Buddy]

I got my driftwood from a local creek and boiled it. After having it in the tank for about a year i noticed some grey stringy mucus accumulating in my gravel. On the underside of the wood there were white stringy things growing.

Ewww! that is the most discusting thing I ever heard!!