Soaking Bogwood

Schmill

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I know it's best to soak the bogwood before putting it in the tank, to try and remove as many tannins as possible to avoid the 'tea effect', but does it matter whether you soak it in 'tap water' or dechlor water?
I can't see any reason why it would need to be dechlor, (and I was planning on just using tap water), but I thought I'd better ask just in case :)
 
Ive always soaked mine in very hot almost boiling tap water, never used dechlor, the amount of water left on it from the tap by the time you put it in the tank is negligable and wouldnt effect anything IMO.

Also, so long as you have no salt or rinse aid in your dishwasher, run it thru a hot cycle (no powder obviously) on that too, does wonders :D
 
All depends if you want any tannins in the tank water, some fish perfer tannins in the water (south american fish mostly), as for soaking it. Take the bogwood and wash it under tap water this will wash any chemicals that may be on it off, then fill a bucket up with water and place the wood in the bucket, check then bucket the next day, the water should be brown, empty the bucket and repeat the process until ever the bogwood has stoped leaching tannins or untill you ae happy with the colour of the water. this can take weeks to complete. Alternately you can boil the bogwood in water for between 1-2 hours is a quick alternative to letting it sit soaking in water for weeks. But this is a very smelly and dirty process for most home aquarists. It also destroys any beneficial fungus or bacteria there may have been on it. If the bogwood is already pretreated it should sink rapidly within a day and will not leak out high levels of tannins. Once you're happy with the way the wood is looking, you should add it to your aquarium.
 
Thanks, got a couple of medium size pieces today, and am currently brewing a huge pot of bogwood tea on the hob in the kitchen.

Anyone fancy a cuppa? :)

Bogwood.jpg
 

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