Loaches Online Forum

There's two pieces of bogwood in LFS that I like, but are too large for me to boil is there any other way to seal it to stop it leaking?

I have soaked wood in a garbage can, a kiddie wading pool might work, and I have thrown stuff into my pond to soak. None of this is actually boiling it, of course, but it does soak until it sinks, and removes a fair amount of the tannins. The tannins are not harmful to the fish; I have had one tank so dark with tannins it looked like red wine, I could not see the back of the tank. Fish were fine.

I soaked my store bought wood (some high-density tropical stuff - possibly mopani) in a bucket for months, changing water every few days. It still leached tannins for a good month or two after I put it in my 33 gal. The tannins aren't necessarily a problem except they make the tank water look like weak tea, so you have to change water a bit more often. I assume there would be some fish that would be sensitive to tannins, but none of what I have seemed to be affected.

if you can't boil it, throw in some salt and or hydrogen peroxide in the water... Tannin really isn't an issue except for being 'unsightly', it's the potential parasites and other goodies that are hitching a ride with the bogwood.