How long do you boil Driftwood?

Question

River driftwood for fresh water aquarium.

Answer 1

Depending on the size of the piece you can put it in a pot with water and bring the water to a boil over a fire/grill/stove or if it's too large (and you don't have a pot you want to use for this) put the driftwood in a large bucket, tub, or as a last resort, bathtub, and pour boiling water over it.

As far as the length of time, this will vary with the piece - larger pieces are more dense, so you should keep them at high temperature longer. The exact time can be as little as 15-20 minutes (usually enough to kill organisms on the surface) to keeping in boiling water for several hours so more of the tannins leach out (these will stain your water brown - boiling may not remove all of this, and some people continue to soak their for several weeks - months).

Answer 2

Boiling Driftwood

Answer 3

Do NOT boil the driftwood.. because if you boil it, you kill virtually every beneficial bacteria in it. Its always better to use a soak treatment.

Put it in a bucket and fill with hot water from the tap. Drain and repeat daily if and until the water is dark brown after 24 hours then repeat less frequently depending on the colour of the water after about three weeks you will have a situation where the water takes a few days to turn light brown and at this stage, the wood will be sufficiently water-logged that it will stay put when you put it in the tank.

However it will still leach tannins. But tannins are not toxic and some people like the colour their water takes on.

Answer 4

as far as i know you dont need to boil it just soak it

Answer 5

you can boil it for 24 hours.

Answer 6

just boil it and scrub the algea off