How Long To Boil Or Soak Moppanni Wood

[black molly3]

hi. i am converting back from marine to tropical to try to breed angel fish to see if i can succeed. i bought small 3mm gravel today as i have decided not to have a bare substrate. anyway i seen a nice piece of mopani wood and was wondering how long should i boil it for and leave to soak for.
also i want to do a planted tank. can i do this sucessfully without injecting Co2.
thanks

 

[shelaghfishface]

with regards to the wood, if you have a dishwasher then you could chuck it in on a long hot wash ( minus soap of course) but it will leak tannins for some weeks to come, on the other hand you could chuck it in a bucket for about 3 weeks and change the water daily youll still get tannins for a while, i happen to like the colour but a lot dont.. if you dont mind the colour at all, then wash it and put it right in
i spose you could concentrate more on low maintence/demand plants, ive rarely used co2 and till recently had great succes with plants in everyday substrate... now i choose fish that eat them so i gave up and ripped them all out.

 

[Sofia]

what shelagh said, totally depends on whether or not you want tannins in your tank or not.

 

[sjolliff]

In total took me 6hrs of boilng then about 36hrs stood in water,
i changed the water when couple time during to see if it was still leaking