Driftwood for my pleco tank

[starfang]

Last week I found a nice piece of driftwood on the beach. I have let it sit outside for a week spending time in the rain and heat. I have washed it couple of times as well. What else should I do before I could add it to my tank? I've heard that I should boil it abit, if so in what temp? for how long?
Does it make any difference if its been in saltwater?
Thanks.

 

[Doodles]

When I boil wood, i let it simmer for a while but always keep the wood covered as much as possible with water, dont let it boil dry. I would imagine this would also remove a lot of the salt but then Ive never used wood from the beach.

I do this for a couple of hours then change the water and do again.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I've used a fair bit of sea drift wood, I leave it in to soak for a couple of weeks and give it a water change every week. If you can get a conductivity meter? it makes finding out if all the salt has come out much easier, just measure the conductivity of the water, add the wood leave it a couple of days measure it again.

When all the salt has come out the water will read the same before and after the wood has been added, you need to make sure that you don't have too much evaporation and I use rain water so the initial conductivity reading is fairly low. You can also use this method choose pieces to keep if you have lots of choice, really hard wood (the heart wood from a root for example) doesn't absorb much salt, so it will pretty quickly be washed clean, whereas softer or really holey ones take longer to leach.

cheers Darrel