How Long For Bogwood To Clean?

[twistedlink]

How many cleans does bogwood need?

I got some yesterday and did hard scrubbing under warm/hot water and got many many bits and pieces off, and dirty water etc etc.

I washed it like this 8 times.

Then i left it in water 3 times and chucked it out and replaced water etc.

Then i did it a final time and left it overnight

The water was a brown tea colour, and ive just done another 1 hour soak, and the water still became tea coloured.

How many attempts will it take before it gets to the point where it wont colour the tank water?

The labels said a couple of weeks of soaking in water, i sure hope thats not true lol!!

 

[Nyx]

It took mine a week of soaking, with daily water changes to get all the colour out.

 

[twistedlink]

A week isnt too bad, but 2-3 like the label said is taking the piss a bit.

Funny story, when i bought the wood the girl said "clean it before you put it into the tank, i made the mistake of adding a bit straight away, i woke up and my tank was brown"

lol....and you work in a FS?

Riiiight.

 

[abzorbd]

Question. If you soak it in regular tap water won't the chlorine soak into the bogwood? Should the water be dechlorinated before soaking?
Also should the wood be boiled or baked?

 

[jennybugs]

If you have a bit of bogwood that's small enough to fit in a pot, immerse it in water then boil it changing the water frequently. I do boil my bits (that sounds so wrong ) in dechlorinated water but not sure if that matters or not. Just repeat until the wood stops leaching. It can take some time mind you.

I have wood in most of my tanks and different bits leach at different rates but I don't mind the look personally and the fish seem to love it. How I'd be able to tell if they didn't is another topic entirely

 

[twistedlink]

absorbd, i did realise that hehe, im not dechlorinating the water, using hot/boiling water now and its taking the colour out real fast now, changing every 30 mins, certainly helping.

Im going to do a final rinse with dechlorinated water (the chemical still in there) so the chemical can get into the wood and do its stuff, il probably soak it in luke warm water for 5-6 hours for the final soak with the dechlorination chemicals in.

 

[abzorbd]

I wasn't sure if it should be soaked in dechlorinated or not. Just made sense to do it though. I'm going to be getting some soon and was curious as to how everyone else "cured" theirs.

 

[twistedlink]

well, ive done well over 15 washes and the water still becomes tea coloured, even after rigorous boiling water being poured over it and scrubbing it hard with a brush.

So if you want to dechlorinate every single batch of water, youre going to get through a LOT of the stuff.

I doubt my bogwood will be ready until 30-50 washes like this.

 

[Gremily]

I'm guessing time will vary for different pieces of bogwood, but I left two big bits in a large tub of water at about 35C for about 12 days, changing the water whenever it got very brown and then put it in the tank. After it had been in the tank for about a week it was a bit brown (only really noticeable with lights off looking down the longer sides of the tank), after I did the first water change it looked pretty clear again. Its been about a week since then and the tank is beginning to look a bit brown again.
If you really want to get rid of all the tannins then I think soaking in as hot water as you can for as long as possible. Get a big plastic tub and a spare heater and leave it on all the time and take the wood out and boil it when you can (although obviously this isn't so easy with big bits!).
It depends on what species you're keeping but unless you really hate the brown water look then I don't think it'll do much harm.

 

[loachman]

It varies depending on size and type of wood. Mopani is supposedly the worst for discoloring water. I soaked mine for 6-8 weeks before adding it. I only changed the water every 5-7 days though and it was a pretty big piece.

 

[littlest]

I had a couple of pieces of bogwood (bought at the same time) that wouldn not stop leeching tanins. I soaked them, I boiled them, soaked them, left them to try, boiled them again, soaked them, left them to dry, soaked them. This went on for a bout 3 months and they were still turning the water brown in a day. I gave up, bought another piece which I soaked for a little over a week and it was good to go.
Don't know why those two pieces were so difficult. I still have them in my fish cabinet.