boil the driftwood???

Can someone tell me if this is true or not. I have heard if you boil driftwood long enough you can take all the tannins out of it and it will then NOT lower or affect your PH at all? And isnt it the tannins that lowers the ph and softens the water?

I have herd the same thing but I do not know by experiance.

I did buy some malaysian driftwood and did not boil it just put it in my aquarium to hopefully lower the ph and sure enough it did lower it alot within a few weeks but after about 4-5 months the ph gradually started to rise again and evenually went right back to were it was i guess all the tannins was released from the driftwood. So to me using driftwood to lower your ph is a waste of time cause you would have to keep adding new pieces every so often to keep the ph down where you want it and by doing that your ph will be shifting threwout the process and thats not good

Yes you can boil out the majority of the tannins.
Yes the tannins do leach out over time till there isn't enough left to make a difference.

do u hav to boil them lol. just enough to waterlog them? i dont know how long my bf can stand tree limbs in a boiling pot. he now looking at me like im going to be taking the canopy off and on everytime u want to do something???? , i would do it but my wrist cant carry that much still at this point.

Pilli, on your tank just water log them, unless you don't like the yellow water look then boil them longer.

lol okay kool deal. i dont mind yellow!!! if someone wood i can pick up some nice logs out in the country where i ride the horses. u can even hav ur own dead tree in the tank lol if u hav a tank big enough.

On found wood I would probably boil it just to kill any creepies/bacteria that may be on it.

Boiling accomplishes 3 things fairly quickly and safely; sterilization, water logging and releasing tannins.