Sandblasted manzanita
 

I just got a lovely piece of driftwood from manzanita.com. When I put water on my driftwood to see what color it will be under water, parts of the branch turn a lovely dark brown with a beautiful grain, but the vast majority has a really flat light blonde color with no grain at all. I was hoping for brown wood in my tank so I'm a little disappointed. Did anyone out there get a super light sandblasted manzanita branch with no grain that turned a darker brown after a while? Or is my tank doomed to look like a graveyard (my tank background is black)?

IME the blondes have gotten darker. it took about a month but they arent even noticeable now.

Here's my branch. As you can see, MOST of it is a flat bone color. Love the tree-like shape of this thing though!

I'm not sure if this also applies to manzanita, but my mopani's blond shade turned darker after a few months underwater.