Dritfood and bacterial blooms?

[AquatiCreations]

Hey guys,

I've been soaking a piece of driftwood in a bucket for a few days now, and upon leaving the wood in the bucket for a good 24hrs it turns the water a cloudy white color. I'm assuming that this is a bacterial bloom. I've dumped and refilled the bucket several times trying to see if I can wait it out, but if the water stands for 24hrs or more the bloom returns. Is there any way to remedy this?

[DonMD]

Clorox will kill bacteria, so if for some reason the bacteria on the wood are "blooming," then adding some bleach for a short while will kill any bacteria. If it's true driftwood, perhaps it's salt leaching off the wood into the fresh water? Just a thought.

[Discus Origins]

Cloudy white is not a good color to come from driftwood, clean good quality wood should only turn the water brown with tannins. Since you've already changed several buckets of water and it keeps doing this I would be very weary and verify the source of this wood before it gets anywhere close to fish.

[jimg]

any wood I have ever gotten for aquarium use always get heavy white slime on it for a few weeks,I scrub it off or the plecos take it off. my water always turned brown, never white

[wendy9722]

any wood I have ever gotten for aquarium use always get heavy white slime on it for a few weeks,I scrub it off or the plecos take it off. my water always turned brown, never white

+1 I hated it when it turned the color of the water so removed it.

[AquatiCreations]

I've had the same happen with the slime and the tannins in the water, both of which clear up pretty fast and haven't caused any problems for me. The bacterial blooms however are a pain in the butt. Especially when they're coming from the nice $30 stump that you just recently bought. lol

[Hsunami]

true dat, just bought my wood from PC1 and loads of slime. So annoying. . . leaving it in my 100 gallon for the shrimps to eat.

[Northwoods Discus]

If it is not actual drift wood but non dried or cured wood it may be leaking sap. Soft woods would do this even more. Is this a piece of wood you purchased or found?

[AquatiCreations]

Purchased.

[Northwoods Discus]

Is the water getting a foul odor? I would just keep soaking until the water is not cloudy anymore and change water like you have been. I have used hot water in the barrel and methylene blue also. You have to rinse well and soak after MB though. Wood is beautiful in a tank but can add issues as well.

[AquatiCreations]

No odor, or slime even. it just makes the water a white cloudy color. I might dump some boiling water over it to see if it's bacteria in/on the wood itself. Wish I had a scope so I could know exactly what it is causing the problem.

[Northwoods Discus]

Huh. Hope you can figure it out to let the rest of us know. Do you know what type of wood it is? Hard like oak, manzanita, etc or soft like cedar, pine etc.

[oscarzx]

Boil it, makes the process of sterilizing much faster.