I've been caught off-guard again. Thanks to everyone who recommends putting anything new in quarantine, no damage has been done. Yet.
I keep reading that plecos like driftwood, so I stopped by PetSmart the other day and bought a medium piece off their shelves. The brand on the front is "GEOsystem", though on the backside of the label (and not visible without removing the wrapper) is a Hagen logo. A second sticker says that this is a piece of Malaysian Wood.
The backside of the label also states: "Natural Aquascape wood is a natural product that has been cleaned to remove extraneous material and to ensure its safety in aquariums." It goes on to mention that it will release some tannin, and that it won't harm your fish because it's actually good, but the color can be removed using carbon.
I hit up Google - read about tannins, driftwood, boiling, bleaching, baking, parasites, not using ocean wood in freshwater aquariums - and how some people are highly paranoid of contamination while others will simply drop a store-bought log right into the tank.
My 5g quarantine tank was already filled with Primed water just to see what this log will do to the environment. No gravel, no carbon, no beneficial bacteria. The water's pH was at 6.8, temperature around 77 degrees, and everything came back negative on my API Master Test kit. The only filter in the HOB is the floss screen to catch particulates. A submersible water pump is suctioned to one wall inside to keep the water moving.
I tossed it in last night, gave it a good brushing to get any dust and crap off, and it's been in there for a bit more than 24 hours now. The water has a very slight yellow tinge to it now, less than I expected - and a lot of the finer particulate is coating the tank's walls. I tested the pH when I came home tonight to discover it has completely crashed - it reads 6.0 on my API chart. It could actually be a lot lower, since that's just the lowest value the test will read.
Now I'm not all that shocked that something I didn't expect happened - but can someone explain it to me?
I keep reading that plecos like driftwood, so I stopped by PetSmart the other day and bought a medium piece off their shelves. The brand on the front is "GEOsystem", though on the backside of the label (and not visible without removing the wrapper) is a Hagen logo. A second sticker says that this is a piece of Malaysian Wood.
The backside of the label also states: "Natural Aquascape wood is a natural product that has been cleaned to remove extraneous material and to ensure its safety in aquariums." It goes on to mention that it will release some tannin, and that it won't harm your fish because it's actually good, but the color can be removed using carbon.
I hit up Google - read about tannins, driftwood, boiling, bleaching, baking, parasites, not using ocean wood in freshwater aquariums - and how some people are highly paranoid of contamination while others will simply drop a store-bought log right into the tank.
My 5g quarantine tank was already filled with Primed water just to see what this log will do to the environment. No gravel, no carbon, no beneficial bacteria. The water's pH was at 6.8, temperature around 77 degrees, and everything came back negative on my API Master Test kit. The only filter in the HOB is the floss screen to catch particulates. A submersible water pump is suctioned to one wall inside to keep the water moving.
I tossed it in last night, gave it a good brushing to get any dust and crap off, and it's been in there for a bit more than 24 hours now. The water has a very slight yellow tinge to it now, less than I expected - and a lot of the finer particulate is coating the tank's walls. I tested the pH when I came home tonight to discover it has completely crashed - it reads 6.0 on my API chart. It could actually be a lot lower, since that's just the lowest value the test will read.
Now I'm not all that shocked that something I didn't expect happened - but can someone explain it to me?
