Hit the Driftwood jackpot today

I find there are easy or hard ways to go on many of the things we do. Knowledge makes things easier and wood collecting is one where I find lots of bad knowledge is spread like wildfire.
those who have been in this game for years and done lots of it use bleach on their tank stuff. That's where the knowledge has to come out over what you can read.
Bleach has chlorine and it is the same chlorine as often found in tap water. The difference is how much chlorine is mixed with how much water (diluted? ) So logic says that we can deal with chlorine form bleach in the same way we deal with chlorine from tap water if we add water when we want to remove the chlorine.
Boiling wood is difficult. Soaking is easy. We can find lots of things to put enough water in to fully soak the wood but it is hard to find a pot big enough and it certainly is a lot of work and hazard to actually keep 50 gallon of water actually boiling. Forget boiling!
Fill a plastic tub or whatever and add a tablespoon to half cup of plain, cheap, unscented bleach to let it soak overnight or so. It takes time for water to penetrate to kill things like borers that may be up in the wood.
Once you are happy that all has been sterilized, pull the wood, rinse and set out to dry fully. As it dries, any remaining chlorine turns to gas and blows away. Just as it does around a pool where you smell the strong chlorine as it blows away?
Once the wood is totally dry and no smell remains, you are safe to use.

Before believing there is something that will soak into the wood and not come out, insist on getting the name of that ingredient.

I find the water in Norfolk to be really one of the cleaner lakes. It does come from a long line of lakes that do get polluted to different levels but what is put into Beaver, Table Rock, and Taneycomo is nothing when compared to what is in the Ohio or Missouri Rivers. I've used a tub full of wood collected from Table Rock!

Chad Ottemann said:

Yes, I didn't even think about bleaching it! But seriously, I don't have a tub or anything at my disposal that this piece will fit in...except the tank that it's in! And I really don't want to fill it up with chlorine water! There is no fish in it, but I do have a few plants. Any idea what the fuzzy stuff might be? I'll try to get a picture if that would help.
Thanks for the reply, btw!

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You are right on that point! No doing the bleach soak in a tank full of plants!
But then, there is hope if the other folks in the house are okay with it being done in the tub? I like doing long term soaks as it takes time for it to get really down deep in big wood. But then if it is small like 1" thick, less time is needed so something like an hour or two can be plenty for some of the thinner stuff. It is all pretty much a guess as to how long and how strong to go. Bleach is something that reacts with all types of organics like we find on wood and the wood itself. One of the reasons we can't say how much to use or how long is we don't know what amount of bugs, dirt, wood, oil, etc. it will find. WE do want it to kill all the bad stuff but not totally dissolve the wood! Expect the wood to be white/grey/bleached when it comes out but that goes back to wood color as it soaks up in the tank.
But on the other hand, knowing that it does react with wood is one reason to know it can't soak into the wood and wait to come out and kill fish. It's a chemical reaction that happens until one or the other is gone so we assume we don't put so much chlorine in that the wood runs out first? :surprise:

For those who do not use liquid bleach on laundry, there is one big item.
NOTE: Bleach will eat your clothes. That means extra, extra care to not get it on the good shirt and pants!!!

Fuzzy stuff is likely to be what I call fungus just for lack of a real name. It seems to be the general idea that it comes around when we put the wood in the water, lives as long as the sugar or whatever food it likes lasts and then goes away. No harm other than it isn't real pretty?

PlantedRich said:

-Fuzzy stuff is likely to be what I call fungus just for lack of a real name. It seems to be the general idea that it comes around when we put the wood in the water, lives as long as the sugar or whatever food it likes lasts and then goes away. No harm other than it isn't real pretty?

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The Fuzz hates the concentrated salt water.
-Soak them in Aquarium Salt for a set time.
-We were lazy, we soaked it for a good week+, then plucked them out.
-Hose the driftwood off.
-Scrub the supposed dead fuzz off with an assortment of brushes in a tub of water.

Tell me if I'm wrong, because this method seemed to work.
I'd love to hear what the powerful minds on the forum can offer up expanding into the treatment of random driftwood.