will a piece of driftwood in my feshwater tank cause my nitrites to be high?

Question

I have got a piece of driftwood in my tank that I found at the beach. could this be causing my nitrites to be too high?
It came from Saltwater, does that make a difference?

Answer 1

No, driftwood, in and of itself, wouldn't cause high nitrites. It might affect ph, but not nitrites. Now, your driftwood could have bacteria which could affect your cycle, but that would be in a good way, if the bacteria were good. Bigger chances would be; however, that it had bad bacteria if you didn't boil it first. The salt, aside from any nasty man-made chemicals that the water has accumulated, is good for a tank, so again, salt wouldn't be a problem. Then again, there could be some nasty man-made chemical similar to ammonia that collected in the wood and now it's cycling. Hard to say. Wood itself won't do this, but the nasty mand-made chemicals will. But, overall, because of all of the nasty man-made chemicals and pollutants, it is not recommended that you put stuff from the beach in your aquarium. If your nitrites are high, it just means that you had a spike and a water change is in order.

Answer 2

It shouldn't unless they wood was something of a soft type that's decomposing, or it had a lot of organisms on it (algae, moss, inverts) that died.

The only way to have an increase in nitrite is to either have something that caused a spike in the ammonia in the tank (fish death, overfeeding, decomposition), or to add something that had an ammonia or nitrite content. It may have been exposed to some chemicals that contained nitrite, which is why any driftwood should be cured by soaking it for several weeks - this allows tannins and harmful chemicals to leach out.

Answer 3

I would take it out and monitor your nitrites. Soak the driftwood in plain water for a week changing the water every day or so. Nitrites going up suggests a disruption in biological filtration. Do not change filter pads and water in same week and do not change more then 20% of the water in a given week.

Answer 4

Make sure you cleaned it very well first , then bake it in your oven. I can't remember the temp. of the oven or for how long for sure , but I think at like 250 degrees for 20 or 30 minutes.I've never done it my self but had a friend who did and had no problems with it.His drift wood also came from saltwater, and he put it into a fresh water tank.