# Particular driftwood with little to no tannins?



## Sean W. (Oct 12, 2013)

Whats up guys,

Im going to be starting a new 110 gallon high tech tank here shortly, ive been scavenging all over the internet looking for inspiration and ideas. Ive found a lot of really awesome scapes that i really liked but a lot of the time they have wood in them somewhere, sometimes i see just regular driftwood used and other times i see really lengthy and scraggly wood used that looks more like thin branches or roots than driftwood. 
Ive used driftwood in a few of my tanks, and each time ive used it they always turn my water brown, even after i boiled them for a couple hours and soaked them for a few weeks. It seems like no matter what i do with typical driftwood it leaks tannins into my water for at least a year. I really dont like tannins, i like my water crystal clear, so in my last few tanks ive skipped wood altogether and just went with rocks for the hard scape. 
But through my research, and the tanks ive seen that use wood as part of the hardscape the water isnt brown, especially the tanks with the straggly drift wood branches. So either they do a large water change before they take the pictures/video, the wood they are using has be submerged for a few years or the wood they use releases little to no tannins.

so my question: Is there a type of driftwood that releases little to no tannins?


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## Eglinlotus (Jul 2, 2013)

manzanita and cholla both have little to non. Im from San Diego, CA born and raised before I join the Air Force. You should be able to harvest you own manzanita out there. Im about to have my dad get me a stump and root system for my 120 gal aqua scape.


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## Christophe (Oct 23, 2013)

Seems like the scraggly, branchy manzanita would contribute less just because there's less mass of wood.

Carbon or purigen in your filter will pull the tannins out of your water. I recently did a rescape with a big stump of mopane wood. It really stained the water, but carbon cleared it in a few days.


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## tenzero1 (Nov 29, 2011)

All wood that i have had, manzi included, has released tannins. If you want instant gratification you may be out of luck with new wood. If you are patient and do regular water changes it should clear up pretty quick. Or simply look for wood that has already been in a tank and has gone through the process, if you dont mind used wood.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

I find it is not so much the type of wood but how old and dry that changes the tannin. Smaller branch types dry quicker but even really thick will dry given time. But time is where many lose out on the search. Time in nature is measured in years more often than weeks or days. I don't do tannin so I spend the effort on getting really, truly, dry wood. The downside is that dry wood will float but I can deal with that better than colored water. When you cut the end off a truly dry piece, the color will be very close to uniform from outer layer down to the center.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Sean W. said:


> Whats up guys,
> 
> Im going to be starting a new 110 gallon high tech tank here shortly, ive been scavenging all over the internet looking for inspiration and ideas. Ive found a lot of really awesome scapes that i really liked but a lot of the time they have wood in them somewhere, sometimes i see just regular driftwood used and other times i see really lengthy and scraggly wood used that looks more like thin branches or roots than driftwood.
> Ive used driftwood in a few of my tanks, and each time ive used it they always turn my water brown, even after i boiled them for a couple hours and soaked them for a few weeks. It seems like no matter what i do with typical driftwood it leaks tannins into my water for at least a year. I really dont like tannins, i like my water crystal clear, so in my last few tanks ive skipped wood altogether and just went with rocks for the hard scape.
> ...


Do they have creeks/streams where you live ? In arias where such exist, you can walk the beds and find places where the roots of the trees
are exposed. Often very twisted and nice looking. These seldom leach tannins as they have been "flushed" already. Get hardwood.
Never pine. Don't have any real info on the pine, but turpentine comes from it.
Most typical "aquarium driftwood" like Malaysian is broken pieces of trees exposing the sap. Tree roots are at least mostly closed in
by the bark. BTW I have bought about 7 pieces off various places mostly Malaysian and only two pieces were half way decent looking
the others being just chunks broke off of a tree. Actually one of the decent ones is that way but it just happened to look fairly
good. Gave 4 pieces to my LFS...probable $50-$60 worth. Just saying if you do buy/see it first or forget it unless your making
just a pile of it in one place intended to look like a log jam etc.


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## Vermino (Jun 14, 2012)

Manzanita would be your best bet on keeping the tannins at a minimum. I don't know what kind of driftwood you were using but I believe Mopani is the worst i've had with tannins. Though it only took a few boilings and soaks to get it to stop.

Remember the manzanita will break down alot quicker compared to Mopani because of the density of the woods.


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