How do I prepare Driftwood for my tank?

I am setting up a new Discus tank and my neighbor brought me a couple of real nice pieces of diftwood he picked up at the river. It is really dry, dirty/sandy. I know it will need a good cleaning but in addition to that is there any other advice which will make it more aquarium and Discus friendly. I was considering boiling it real good after I wash it and then let it soak in water for a couple of weeks to let it get re-saturated so it doesn't want to float.

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bryant

[Carol_Roberts]

Personally I would not use driftwood or anything from the river. One year I pumped river water into my Koi pond. The koi got anchor worm and I have never gotten rid of the moss - every summer it comes back.

[korbi_doc]

Ok, I'll give this a try. My experience differs from Carols. I found a real unusual piece for my 90g tank at the side of a small pond here in Jersey when I was starting with discus. Think I gave it overkill, soaked it outside in a barrel for 3 wks, changing water every few days, then treated it with chlorine in the barrel, overnite, then resoaked & changed again sev'l times. It's been in the tank for 2+yrs. The next batch I got from a roadside vendor, so didn't know where they came from. I just treated them in a barrel with chlorine overnite, rinsed well, then placed the ones that would fit into the dishwasher (cycled without soaps 1st, this idea was someone here on the forum) without anysoap of course, for 1 cycle. These have all done fine. If it doesn't fit in the dishwasher, then its soaked a few days in the barrel with daily rinses. I think if the source is unknown, they need to be carefully cleansed. Hard to really sterilize since we don't have access to that kind of equipment, (too bad my autoclave is so small) so chlorine is the next best choice, with multi-rinsings afterward. I really like that hot rinsing in the dishwasher & several cycles can be used if in doubt. JME, Dottie : :

Dottie,
That's a really good idea. I never even thought about the dishwasher. I think I'll give it a soak in the chlorine and the multi cycles in the dishwasher.

Thanks for the info,
Bryant

P.S. - Carol, sorry to hear about your unfortunate luck, hope it gets better.