Is My Wood Rotting?

[doubledee]

Hi,

When I returned from work the other day, I noticed that my Vallisneria nana had died, leaving just a few rotting leaves. I removed it and noticed that the sand had turned grey when I removed the roots. I put this down to the plant rotting and thought nothing of it.

Today, while I was mucking around in the tank, I noticed more grey sand coming from underneath my piece of red moor wood. I pulled out a small branch from the sand and the end has broken up and turned black. Is the wood rotting and if so I presume I should remove it at once?

Initially I had a whitish slime coming out of the wood but that cleared up within days. There are no visible signs of rotting on any of the visible parts of the wood i.e. not under the sand.

The tank is cycling at present (for the second time!) so there are no fishes in there at the moment.

 

[TammyLiz]

Does it smell bad? I would think if it smells ok and the texture of the wood hasn't changed it should be fine.

What type of wood is that, though? It looks like a vine to me.

 

[arif_93]

pour boilin water over it

 

[DarkEntity]

Yes its rotting, get rid of it and get some Mopani or Bogwood

 

[doubledee]

The wood is a medium piece of redmoor wood from aquaessentials that cost me a bl**dy fortune so I'm not throwing it out. If it is the problem, I'll boil it again and soak it forever if need be! I took the wood out and it looks like the problem has been caused by the substrate underneath being compressed by the wood. That's just a theory! I took out the substrate under the wood and the terralit (made by AquaMedic) was all grey and white. The terralit is made up of four different coloured gravel pieces (don't know what it actually contains) but it looks like the colours had leeched out under compression into the sand. The wood looked fine underneath so the only part that had split and had gone black was the small branch that I photographed. I removed the substrate from under the wood and replaced it with pure silver sand. This reduced the height of the substrate so now the wood is not pressed up against the glass above as I wanted the wood to rise out of the water. The wood doesn't smell. Fingers crossed that's solved the mystery. The water was all cloudy last night after disturbing the terralit but this morning it's crystal clear again (Eheim filter definitely recommended) and I've just tested the water and my nitrites have gone! At last!!!!!