Does your Manzanita darkens with time?

[DiscusBR]

Hi eveyone,

I wonder if others face the same problem. When I get new Manzanita driftwood branches, they look wonderful, with red patterns. But after a few weeks in the tank brown algae takes over and the branches turn dark. The patterns and nice color disappear. It definetely looses a lot of its beauty. Has someone experienced this?

[KV_Discus]

same thing happened with mine. They do look nice and beauty when I pulled them out of the water and let them dry for a week. However, after in the water, they turn back into brown with brown algae on them but I still like them. In fact, my discus love them and so do my plecos, so I won't mind.

[Darrell Ward]

Generally, I've found new manzanita pieces have been sandblasted to clean them, giving them that look you like. After they stay waterlogged for a while, they tend to stain brown. I usually pull them from the tank every six months or so, and give them a good cleaning with a pressure washer. This gets rid of the built up slime and crud on them, and brings back some of the lost look. I suppose you could dry them out, sandblast them, and they would look new again, but it wouldn't last.

[DiscusBR]

If Manzanita tends to darken, wouldn't it make more sense to get wood from a clean river, rather then spend money and effort to get special driftwood? For example, Jose Cardona built his amazing biotope tank with wood he got from a river.

[Darrell Ward]

You could. I've used swamp wood before, I think it was cypress. It was fine for aquarium use after washing it. I think you'll find that most all wood will darken when used in water. Mananita is a good wood to use primarily because it is extremely hard, and doesn't decay easily, but you could also use any type of hard wood.