Re: driftwood question

[Jim Atchison <jim@atchison.com>]

Jason,
I'm sorry that I didn't pick up on your previous post regarding the
sterilization of driftwood. Boiling it would be a tuff way to sterilize
it. You would have to bring the interior of the piece to an excess of
200' to do much good and then keep it there for a decent amount of time
(hours not minutes) depending on which pathogen you wanted to destroy.
Boiling the piece may help to clean it...or help it to become water
logged in order to sink, but probably not a good way to sterilize it.
I stick my hands in tanks all day and dare say that they are more apt to
transfer a nasty than would a clean piece of driftwood.
The rotten smell is not a good thing. You may have organic crud of some
kind on the surface of the wood that was softened by the boiling and now
is rotting on the wood...if that is the case, it will go away with more
cleaning (I use a high pressure hose and a bristle brush)...more boiling
will not help all that much. It could be the peat, but I rarely
experience a "rotten" smell from peat...it has to sit a fairly long time
to go sour.
My first guess would be rotting crud on the surface or nooks and crannys
of the wood.
My second guess would be pockets of the wood that have started to rot.
That would be a distressing event. I've had this happen a couple of time
with driftwood I have found...since I have no investment in the piece, I
just throw them away.
Some accumulated ideas on wood:
http://www.atchison.com/wood_in_the_aquarium.htm

Good luck,
Jim

ruddigar@home.com wrote:

> Recently I posted a question about sterilizing driftwood.  Well, I
> boiled it, then placed it in my 33 gal. garbage can that I use for
> water
> changes (peat treatment to acidify and soften the liquid rock that
> comes
> from my tap).
>   Today, when I did some water changes on my tanks, I noticed that the
>
> can smelled rotten.  I'm pretty sure that it is just the smell of the
> peat, but am now wondering if I should replace all of the water and
> the
> peat, and re-sterilize the driftwood.  I was just going to add it to a
>
> tank today, but am wondering if it is safe.
>
> All help is appreciated.
>
> Jason Miller
> Sherwood Park, AB
> (780) 464-9635
>
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