Australia's Science Forum

Anyone know of a way to quickly leach the brown tannins from natural wood?

I have boiled and rinsed my sticks 3 times, , over 3 days- and the water is still as brown as when I first started.

I am buying new fish this afternoon, and they need the wood for their teeth. But I dont want a brown tank.

Thanks
OB

Do you want the good news first?
It will leach tannin out of wood by soaking it in water, but it will take up to weeks or months.
You need to change water every couple of days until hardly any colour remains. Small amount of tannin acid is nor toxic to fish, but will discolour water and could drop pH.
Happy fishing
Lada

ok Lada
I hear you.
I wanted instant tannin free wood. I figure then that its not going to happen overnight. I will keep changing every day and see what happens. I remember one tank I had ages ago, but in some wood that I bought from the petshop to use a hiding places for teh fish. The water was so badly coloured that couldnt see the fish

And how good a hiding place is murky water?

yes makes it very murky indeed. So boiling up my 'stick' again

Sad news is I had some pet shop wood in a bucket for a YEAR!!! And it still leached tannin every time I changed the water. I gave up in the end. I think we decided we would either go poly resin OR get some driftwood and soak it to get the salt out. That will probably be quicker!

I had some driftwood a while back, and it also leached.
Just need real wood (not resin) for my plecos to rasp on