# Bleach soak for found driftwood



## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Wood is one of my favorite things and bleach is one thing I use a lot. 
But it is also almost always a source of dispute about whether bleach is safe. There are the believers and the non -believers in some things so this is just my spin from using it a lot. 
Wood is like anything else we use in the tank. It is like gravel, rocks or plants. They can all pick up some things we might not want to mix with our fish. I've always liked to try to slant the odds in my favor when dealing with risk. One way I do that is to remove as many of the little unknowns as I can so that if a problem pops up, I have fewer possible causes to sort through. I sterilize my dishes before I eat and like to do the same for my tank stuff. If I get a belly ache, I like to know it's not from something on the plate! 
So I favor doing a bleach soak using plain, simple bleach that has no extras like color or scents. 
I use enough water to fully cover the stuff, add enough bleach to feel right. Since there is no way to measure/calculate how much organic material the chlorine will find and I know the wood is not going to totally dissolve like your shirt might, I just pour in "enough". A half cup in 50 gallons is plenty. A couple tablespoons in 20? 
I normally let it set for at least 8-10 hours or more if I get busy. Give it plenty of time to soak in and kill any nasties that are hiding way deep in the wood. When I get back to the project, I rinse it as that makes it easier to handle without getting holes in my pants. That gets the bleach diluted back to close to what we find in tap water and then I let it dry totally. When I can't smell it any more, I figure the bleach has finished gassing off. 
Expect the wood to look kind of pale for a while but it also returns to normal color once it gets soaked again.


----------



## oOturquoiseOo (Aug 5, 2016)

Thank you! 

What do you think about the salt? Will an 8-10 hour soak be enough to get the salt out?


----------



## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Any small amount of salt is not usually a problem. It will be a small amount and then we also often use salt to treat fish. It is part of many medicines designed for fish. Treating ich with salt is a pretty common thing.


----------



## oOturquoiseOo (Aug 5, 2016)

Perfect! Thank you


----------



## hubble13 (Sep 1, 2010)

I just put all my found rocks and driftwood and even driftwood I get at the LFS through the dishwasher (no detergent of course) But I'm the chief bottle washer so I can get away with it.:grin2:
I also keep it in a tub of just plain water for a couple of weeks.


----------



## longgonedaddy (Dec 9, 2012)

oOturquoiseOo said:


> Thank you!
> 
> What do you think about the salt? Will an 8-10 hour soak be enough to get the salt out?




I'm with PlantedRich on liberal bleach use. It kills anything you wouldn't want in your tank. I use it at a much stronger concentration, too, with no effects if processed out by a chemical remover plus gassing off. 

As far as the salt, I would think that the wood might need a few days' soak to get it to sink. With the amount of soaking and du,ping of the soak water, you'll be fine with getting the salt out.


----------



## Snowflake311 (Apr 20, 2011)

I let things dry and hose them off then put them in. With took I find i sand it or buff it out. Rocks I just hose them off. I have never had any problems doing this 

If the wood is dry and has been all bugs would be dead. So I would just hose it off and plop it in. I never use cemicals on things that go in my day. MAYBE I will you vinegar to clean thats about it.


----------



## klibs (May 1, 2014)

if too big to boil you can also just toss in the oven for a few hours @ ~200 degrees


----------



## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

We all have different levels of risk that don't bother us. But for my purpose, I never know where the wood or rocks have been and i don't like to look back after a disaster and try to figure out what happened. So if I can do something really simple to remove some of the variables, I do it. 
Plop it in and a couple weeks later all the fish die and that can leave you scratching and wondering about one more little possible cause. We are often lucky and all is well but then again, it's possible the local meth cooker just dumped his leftovers on that wood! 
I don't take chances with my fish when a quarter will buy plenty of bleach to take that question off my list. 

The difference in a bleach soak and tap water is the amount of water we use in the mix.


----------



## oOturquoiseOo (Aug 5, 2016)

Thanks everyone! 

Well, life with 2 small kiddos happened and the driftwood is still sitting down by the tank with nothing done. Haha! 

I do plan to soak it with bleach. I'm nearly 100% positive there is absolutely nothing living in there to harm my fish but I don't want to take the risk. I picked it up dry on the beach. In rural Newfoundland, in a town of ~90 people. Other than fish guts I don't think there would be anything on it. Haha! Then it sat 3 years in my basement. With 6 month long winters and a wood stove blazing. It's so dry now I think it'll take a month of soaking it to get it to sink! Haha! 

Is too big to boil but I could definitely put it in the oven. But, I think the bleach soak will kill 2 birds with one stone and start the process of getting it wet through. 

Thanks again everyone!


----------



## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

It all has a certain amount of risk and it is all a personal choice so I just like to throw out what I do and let others decide but then it does seem like there is a lot of really bad thining when it comes to bleach. 
The main one i object to is that there is something in bleach that can soak into wood and stay until fish are around. Nobody ever has a name for this "residue" but they are certain it is there because they read about it on the internet! Chlorine is a chemical that reacts very easily with organics like wood so, I see no way the two can be placed together without the reaction happening until one or the other is gone. We hope it is the bleach and that we have not used so much the wood is totally eaten? 
Plop and drop can be safe but I know bleach soaks are safe because myself and thousands of other experienced folks use it all the time. 

I used to think rural areas were safe but then I wound up in living on a lake about 6 miles from a little town of 79 people that showed me some things about where the meth cookers like to hide! If it wasn't some guy blowing up his house it was somebody dumping their used oil!! I didn't want any of those questions on the wood for my tank. From there I moved to the St. Louis suburbs and wound up a few miles from Times Beach so my whole attitude has changed over time. Most of the superfund sites were never cleaned up but just located and listed.


----------



## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

They used to use chlorine extensively for bleaching wood pulp to make paper white/whiter, until concern's over organochlorine compound's which were produced and released into the environment. 
We probably do not need to worry bout small amount's produced by bleach soak's of a few small pieces of wood.
Boiling the wood has always been my approach or pressure washing and then let dry.


----------



## oOturquoiseOo (Aug 5, 2016)

Thanks  

Maybe I'll bake it in the oven. 

I can guarantee there's no meth cookers anywhere near here (my town is the next closest and there's only 1200 people here, only about 2500 on the entire peninsula where I live - at least 50% seniors) but I can't guarantee no one is dumping used oil. Blech! I hope they aren't!


----------



## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Some thoughts on boiling and why I feel it is not the solution I want to use. We know that pesticides and /or oily things may be on wood we find. Oil is dropped and lost in lots of places and lots of it winds up in the rivers, lakes or the ocean. So I have to assume some of that oil can wind up in and on the wood I find. I rarely get to any spot that a motorcycle, snowmobile or other machine can't go so I assume there is a possibility of oil most anywhere. 
So maybe some thoughts about how to remove the hazard of oils or pesticides may be worthwhile. 
What happens if we put a chunk of wood in a pot and boil it to remove oil? Unless we get it hot enough to vaporize and gas off the oil, where does the oil go? It floats around in the water. 
So what does boiling wood give us when we finish? Wood that has been boiled in oily water! Not a solution that I would bother doing as it still leaves the oil on/in the wood. 

So what has always been used to remove the "grease around the collar" mentioned in the old ads? Bleach. 
When the health department monitors construction of new public water facilities like water towers or pipelines, they specify how the inside will be cleaned. They tell you how many gallons of what strength of bleach and low long to soak it. 
So when I want to really know my wood is clean and safe for my tank, I use a bleach soak. 

We all take risks every day and we often get away with doing things but I do like to hold it down to the minimum.


----------



## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

You might want to collect wood from area's where there is less chance of pesticides or oil residues.
I often boil the wood for two hours or more all the while dumping water from the stock pot and refilling to bring to a boil again.
This allow's me to see how much tannin's are still remaining.
Seldom removes all the tannin's depending on size of the piece of wood, but removes a bunch along with any other unwanted matter in/on the wood.
Lignin's in the wood prevent much of anything from penetrating too deeply into the wood in the way of organic matter and or chemical's .
On side note..can boil peat in cheesecloth or an old T shirt and use the rendering in the pot as DIY black water extract for those that like the tannin stained water.
Would not use the tannin stained water in boiling pot from boiling the wood piece(s) lest indeed there were nastie's that would be best left out of the aquarium.


----------



## oOturquoiseOo (Aug 5, 2016)

This is the driftwood in question. Maybe I'll just skip it altogether. Maybe it's not "pretty" enough anyway.


----------



## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Pretty is something that is very personal and hard to define so what works for one may not for another. One point to keep in mind when finding wood is that the color may not be a very good point to choose as wood does often change color as it soaks up the water. 
My point is , don't choose by color. 
That looks like a root ball to the left with one of the larger stems going to the right. I might expect it to turn brown as it soaks. 
But there is also a lot of guesswork when dealing with nature! I see far less planning and much more "throw it out there and see what works".


----------



## oOturquoiseOo (Aug 5, 2016)

Thanks  

If I ever get time I'll bleach it and see how it goes. With all the info in here I think bleaching is what I feel most comfortable with.


----------

