DOES DRIFTWOOD INHIBIT GROWTH?

[alexfl73]

Hi All,

I have 4 Planted Tanks. I have a 150, 60 and 2 20 Gallon. All are planted. They are all growing great but my 150. All my plants in my 150 are looking unnourished and the leaves always look bad. The all have discus, get the same light, ferts and water changes. The only difference is that my 150 has driftwood (mopani wood). I am searching for a reason why my plants dont flourish in the 150. Can the driftwood inhibit the growth? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you!

[Wahter]

Hi All,

I have 4 Planted Tanks. I have a 150, 60 and 2 20 Gallon. All are planted. They are all growing great but my 150. All my plants in my 150 are looking unnourished and the leaves always look bad. The all have discus, get the same light, ferts and water changes. The only difference is that my 150 has driftwood (mopani wood). I am searching for a reason why my plants dont flourish in the 150. Can the driftwood inhibit the growth? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you!

No, driftwood won't prevent your plants from growing - just look at Amano's tanks. Plenty of wood in many of them.

http://www.adana.co.jp/innerfade/images/suikei_03.jpg

Post some photos of your 150, what plants you are trying to grow, the lighting, filtration, etc... and we'll take a look.


Walter

[pcsb23]

I wouldn't think so. To the best of my knowledge I've never had mopani wood in any of my tanks, bt I have had loads of tanks with various other types of bogwood and driftwood. Could it be a light/depth ratio issue maybe?

[MarkPulawski]

Depending on what type of bulbs you have and there age, they may need to be replaced. From my reef days, power compacts are greatly deminished at 10 months of age. Unless you know the bulbs are new try replacing them.
mark

[grantbudd74]

when you say light is the same is the WPG the same? As mentioned above it could be a depth thing or a circulation problem. I find it hard to tell what is going on with plants as the signs are all similar, plants look yellow!

ALso are you using any carbon or Bio chem zorb thing? If so this does absorb nutrients and ferts as well as nitrates and amonia etc. Do you ahve test kits to test ferts? Your dosing may be out or your lighting may be higher thus you are going to burn through more ferts as the plants use more energy.

Ok thats all I can think of as its ofetn something very simple that we miss and go for the kill!

Good luck

[neilh]

I gather you mean Mopani root?

Excerpt of a post from one of our local plant keepers forums in South Africa. Its from a Professor at University of Cape Town....

Ever so often I have noticed that there have been enquiries on this forum about discolouration of water as a result of driftwood, or of fish and plant problems possibly associated with driftwood. An example of this was the recent enquiry by Solex69 (Dale) about Barclaya longifolia, in which his plant was first shown as growing very nicely, in a very nicely landscaped tank, but then after that the plant was reported to be losing leaves and had lost its bud. In this tank you would notice a large piece of driftwood and a definite brown coloration of the water, which is of course as a result of the leaching of tannins from the logs.

Much has been written about the beneficial effects of tannins, or also called humic acids or fluvonic acids, for fish coming from the Amazon for example. In the Amazon the water is extremely poor in minerals and any plant nutrients for that matter, but it is rich in tannins. They leach from the plants of which there are of course tons upon tons in the Amazon. Very importantly though is that this leaching is mainly from leaf material and less so perhaps from wood. These tannins are very beneficial for fish coming from this system as it has been showing that they have an antibacterial action.

So there seems to be an apparent contradiction, the tannins are supposed to be beneficial, but we see some problems as a result of the tannins leaching from the logs that persons are putting into their aquaria. It is my opinion that these problems are the result of the fact that the logs that are sold in South Africa as "driftwood" are actually NOT DRIFTWOOD AT ALL! They are logs of mopani tree stumps coming from river courses in northern Namibia. Mopani trees grow as dense thickets (for those of you that have visited the northern Kruger Park, you will have seen them) and particularly in Namibia, and tend to burn off during dry periods. They then resprout from the roots and stumps and over periods of between 200 to 500 years (Yes, as long as that!) they eventually form these driftwood like looking stumps. These are now collected and "farmed" in Namibia. After taking them out of the soil, they die and they are then sandblasted to remove any bark and soil. When they supplied by your LFS, they have not been soaked in water ever, and it is here where the problems start as far as I am concerned. Some of the logs will remain hard and will not rot after being submersed in the fishtank, others will become soft, often not over the whole log but in the holes in between the black portions where the wood is softer. I have had logs doing this that have caused major problems in my tanks and have lead to fish deaths. I will for example, never put them into any of my tanks containing discus. We tend to think that these are logs coming from water, but this is not the case at all which is also then the reason why they leach out so many tannins. I am also not convinced that some of the substances leaching out of mopani are not detrimental for fish. Wood like tamboti, is toxic, and anyone coming from Limpopo Province knows that you do not make a braai using this wood. I also wonder about mopani. Are there not plant substances and perhaps soil residues in the wood which are potentially detrimental?

So, my advice with these logs is to definitely soak them in water for three to four weeks with numerous water changes before using them. Also, they should be checked for soft spots ever so often, and if they have soft spots, these soft spots should be removed to stop the rotting process, which is definitely detrimental to fish and plants.

In Europe, these logs are sold as "mopani" logs and not just as "driftwood", and folks are warned to water them extensively for use, so be careful!

[Apistomaster]

The preceding post was most informative.

I do think wood may sometimes inhibit some plants' growth.
True aged fresh water sourced drift wood is not as likely to inhibit plant growth as the Mopani or other woods which leach out tannins among other complex chemicals. These may be helpful for black water fish. Few true aquatic plants thrive in natural black water.

Frequent and large volume water changes should be enough to keep any potential negative effects under control. At least this has been my experience.

[tcyiu]

Thank you NeilH. Very instructive post. Great find!
Tim