Driftwood has some weird stuff on it

Hello all. I put a new piece of driftwood in my tank and it has this weird stuff on it. What is it and what should I do?

Driftwood slime (or some call it driftwood “snot”) -completely normal. Just take it out of the tank and scrub it down. Repeat until condition improves.

Or, it can be left alone, and will dissipate on it's own, in time...harmless...some fish will even nibble on it

Welcome to the forum.

Take it outside and hose it off, then put it back in the tank. Some driftwood slime is toxic so better to get rid of the slime outside and put the cleaned wood in the tank.

We used to have to leave our bits of bogwood soaking, submerged, in a bucket for a fortnight, prior to use, to ensure it was safe for aquarium usage.
Buying it just so prepared from a shop was a rare find and very expensive.
Today, every shop I see has lots of assorted wood for sale and i wonder what prep it had beforehand, (if any). That said, even if a shop told me it was ready for the tank, I'd still soak it in a bucket! Old habits die hard, I s'pose.

Bruce Leyland-Jones said:

Today, every shop I see has lots of assorted wood for sale and i wonder what prep it had beforehand, (if any).

Click to expand...

Shops don't treat driftwood unless it is going into a display tank at the shop. They buy the wood in from suppliers and it sits on the floor or shelf until it gets bought. The wood isn't treated at the suppliers either. it is usually gathered from somewhere and sent to the wholesaler as part of a shipment, then distributed to individual stores. It's kept dry this entire time.

I used to soak driftwood before using it too. It was great for encouraging mosquitoes to breed in containers of water and I could get heaps of mozzie larvae from buckets with driftwood soaking in it. The mozzie larvae were fed to the fish.

Thanks for your help friends, I’ll remove it to stub it off just to be safe!