Is this actually spiderwood?!

I bought this Saturday from a LFS selling it as spiderwood and was told it wouldn't leach tanins and no need to boil...

Although I did, for 6 hours. Changing the water out halfway thru. Both times the water was very dark brown. I let sit in a bucket of tap for about 20 hours and no more leaching and it was starting to sink well.

So I added it to my tiny little fluval edge 6gallon which is fairly heavily planted and has perfectly clear water and no algae.

This pic was the next morning but as the days passed the water started gettin a little darker and my ground cover plants (name has the word cardinal in it) started to look dull in color and lifeless. Usually very bright green and perky.

Also the glass started to get a very fine green algae cover on them making the glass appear dirty.

I cleaned manually (not easy in the edge especially with all of these item in here).

I started to question whether or not this is actually spiderwood...
I did some googling last night and found it looks much more like something called redmoor wood.

Anyone know? And any suggestions...do I let this play out?

Thanks a million!

I have done some searching and I cannot find anything indicating the species. The names are probably descriptive and or marketing related. Probably not related to any one plant. I is possible to that the names redmoor and spiderwood may be applied to multiple plants. Besides knowing the name or plant won't really help much.

The dark coloring of the water is probably from tannin or other organic molecules leaching from the wood. It is impossible to know how long it will leach this material. But this material might be feeding the algae. There are several thinks you could do.

1. remove it and let it leach in a bucket until it stops.
2. do more frequent water changes. Just be sure to keep an eye on you PH and water hardness levels. Keep those stable.
3. Place a organic absorbent in your filter to keep the water clean. Activated carbon will do this but you may have to change it frequently. The other option is the use an absorbent resin like SeaChem Purgen. Purge is an organic sponge Periodically you will have to remove it a recharge it according to the instructions on the product label. Recharging Purgen removes the organics it absorbed. Once the recharge is done it can go back into your filter.

Since I have never had wood in my tank and have never had to deal with this i cannot tell you how long you will have to deal with this or how well Purgen or activated carbon will work.

How odd. The wood looks like what I've always known as redmoor root, which is what mine is. I just assumed that spider wood was another name for it.

I'm thinking along the same lines as StevenF, that the wood is leaching something that's feeding the algae. Especially as it's the only thing you've changed. Maybe the ground cover plant is suffering because either 1. The algae is competing for food (maybe it was already on the wood) or 2. It's not getting enough light because of the tannins. Number 2 would mean that the balance of lights/nutrients etc would be out, meaning less happy plants, meaning opportunity for algae to grow.

I don't know enough about the water chemistry and plants to give solid advice, I'm just speculating. I hope you can sort it.

Oh yay...I'm so glad you guys checked in and offered some opinions and advice!

I discovered this am that it's definitely leaching something besides tannins (which I expected and knew I could live with as long as it stopped at some point down the road).

There is a very fine slimy white fuzz on parts of the wood.
I had to stop myself from freaking out and ripping it out and basically taking a flame thrower to it.

I got online and did much searching to learn that apparently it's pretty common and nothing to worry about (still hard not to especially with such a tiny tank).
And that it's bacteria feeding on small organics in the wood, which will eventually starve and die off.

Apparently wood has to go thru a cycle (like anything else living I suppose).
I don't want to remove it and disrupt its cycling.

It's crazy to think that there could still be anything in that wood after boiling the heck out of it for 6 hours but...?

I was hoping my nerite would wake from wherever he's disappeared to and have a feast but I still haven't seen him.

I'm tempted to get a few more just to help this along but I really don't want a snail explosion.

My Amano is having fun but doesn't seem to be eating the fuzz.

My bigger worry in all of this is my water parameters. My ph has not changed (oddly) but my kh and gh have gone up a little!??
Isn't that odd? Or is it because of the new bacteria? But those have to do with minerals right? It doesn't make sense to me.

Tetra 6 in 1 test strip:
Ph: still 6.8-7.2 although API test kit shows 7.8 (which is also same as before)
Kh: up a bit 80
Chlorine: still 0
Gh: up a bit 150
Nitrite: still 0
Nitrate: closer to 0 than before just ever so slight color.

Oh and I moved the little fading ground plants out from under the wood so they can get more light.

I have the same white slime on my new wood! I think it must be the same type. I also read that it's normal and should die off eventually. I wiped some off when I cleaned the tank today.

Flubberlump said:

I have the same white slime on my new wood! I think it must be the same type. I also read that it's normal and should die off eventually. I wiped some off when I cleaned the tank today.

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and apparently it's the same wood. spider wood and red moor wood. just different trade names.

Ahh right. Good to know.

I had white fuzzy slime on my mopani wood when I first put it in, and it went away by itself in a few days. I did freak out a little at first because it looked gross.

With the nerite snails, you won't get a population explosion because they can't reproduce in fresh water. I have six or seven in one of my tanks. But, you may get nerite snail eggs. They look like small white dots on the wood, plants or glass. They won't hatch, but they are hard to remove if you don't want to see them. If you have a PetSmart near you, they often have a good selection of different kinds of nerite snails. They do seem to be poop machines, though! But they are cool looking.

Have you tried using a magnetic algae scraper to clean your glass? I think it might be the way to go with the hard-to-reach places in that tank.

Mark Z. said:

I had white fuzzy slime on my mopani wood when I first put it in, and it went away by itself in a few days. I did freak out a little at first because it looked gross.

With the nerite snails, you won't get a population explosion because they can't reproduce in fresh water. I have six or seven in one of my tanks. But, you may get nerite snail eggs. They look like small white dots on the wood, plants or glass. They won't hatch, but they are hard to remove if you don't want to see them. If you have a PetSmart near you, they often have a good selection of different kinds of nerite snails. They do seem to be poop machines, though! But they are cool looking.

Have you tried using a magnetic algae scraper to clean your glass? I think it might be the way to go with the hard-to-reach places in that tank.

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Yes I actually got the one I have from the marlton petsmart and it's beautiful!

And I forgot that very awesome bit of info that they can't hatch in freshwater!

I don't really want the eggs but I sure could use their help right now! Hum....
Wonder if my shrimp would eat the eggs?!

And you're right about the Algae magnet. I might have to do that.

Glad to hear your driftwood got better!

StevenF said:

1. Place a organic absorbent in your filter to keep the water clean. Activated carbon will do this but you may have to change it frequently. The other option is the use an absorbent resin like SeaChem Purgen. Purge is an organic sponge Periodically you will have to remove it a recharge it according to the instructions on the product label. Recharging Purgen removes the organics it absorbed. Once the recharge is done it can go back into your filter.

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Is this purigen something I can use for just a short while as the tanins are still leaching?

And it seems the small bag is 100ml...is this too much for my teeny 6 gallon tank?

I'm thinking of going this route as I don't want to remove the wood and disrupt its need to cycle in my tank.

This isn't chemical correct? It's just a pad? I don't want to add anything into my tank chemical wise.

And I forgot that very awesome bit of info that they can't hatch in freshwater!

I don't really want the eggs but I sure could use their help right now! Hum....
Wonder if my shrimp would eat the eggs?!

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the eggs are too hard for shrimp. My Amano don't touch them. I also suspect that if you buy one nerite with a very different shell color pattern, you will likely have a different species of nerite and they may not breed.

Is this purigen something I can use for just a short while as the tanins are still leaching?

And it seems the small bag is 100ml...is this too much for my teeny 6 gallon tank?

This isn't chemical correct? It's just a pad? I don't want to add anything into my tank chemical wise.

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Yes it is something you can use for just a short while. it is not a chemical that dissolves in water. Instead it is a resin bead that absorbs organic chemicals in the water. You can put these in a cloth sack in your filter or separate it from your other filter material with a porous foam pad or sheet of cloth.

Since I have never used it myself I don't know how much you need. But I don't see why 100ml would be too much. After all it doesn't release anything into the water. It just removes organics. However using more of it in the filter )assuming it all fits) would probably mean it would last longer before needing to be removed and regenerated.

The driftwood got better rather quickly, actually.

I doubt the shrimp would eat the eggs. They are very tough. Very hard to get off the wood; they come off the glass with the algae scraper.

StevenF said:

the eggs are too hard for shrimp. My Amano don't touch them. I also suspect that if you buy one nerite with a very different shell color pattern, you will likely have a different species of nerite and they may not breed.

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Being that it's quite difficult for me to get in and out of my edge...it would be hard to scrape the eggs off to dispose. Would leaving them there cause any harm?
Is it the same as a rotting fish, creating ammonia?

By the way, I found my nerite today while pruning plants after a water change (which really cleared up the tannins (which I know will return). I put him on the wood but he quickly scampered away. lazy butt.

StevenF said:

Yes it is something you can use for just a short while. it is not a chemical that dissolves in water. Instead it is a resin bead that absorbs organic chemicals in the water. You can put these in a cloth sack in your filter or separate it from your other filter material with a porous foam pad or sheet of cloth.

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I'm going to head to LFS tomorrow to get some more RO. I will see if they have this. I've read a lot of good things about it. Not a lot of people talk about it with plants but some have said it's ok. I figure if I see any change in plants I'll remove it. I'm just worried about the dosing of it as 100ml is good for 100 gallons. I have 6. ha. Should it just last longer or am I just overkilling it?!

Mark Z. said:

The driftwood got better rather quickly, actually.

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I'm glad to hear that! You didn't boil right? But soaked for a long time? Or am I thinking of someone else? I'm reading way too much lately! I think my brain is too saturated!

Leaving the eggs wouldn't cause any problems. They are about the size of a large grain of sand. I have nerites in both my tanks; only one tank has eggs on the driftwood. I have different kinds of nerites, and sometimes I see one on top of another one, not sure if they are breeding or if one is just going for a ride. There is a photo of the eggs on an anubia on this old thread... http://www.fishforums.net/threads/lighting-for-48-gallon-with-anubias.436443/

I imagine, since the nerites are all in one tank at the store, that you could have one lone female and still have eggs. I have removed eggs from the glass with an algae scraper. I've had two in my betta bowl in the past with no eggs.

I never boiled any of my wood. I soaked my driftwood (not sure what kind it is) for weeks in a bucket and my mopani wood (which looks like tree branches) I just put right in because it was too big to soak it in anything. The mopani wood is the wood that had the white fuzzy fungus-looking stuff.