I've never used driftwood found in nature, but if I were going to, I'd boil it a lot and probably disinfect it with some proper medium (in case it has some chemicals it it - you never know with today's polluted environment). But I don't know what the proper medium would be. Not sure, but I think I heard on Fish Lore that bleach would do. But I personally would be afraid to use bleach because wood is a very porous material and that means it can absorb a lot of bleach in. God forbid that bleach leaked into the tank with fish!
If you can afford, there is a much easier solution. Go to your fish store and buy ready-made driftwood. For a 10 gallon tank, you don't need a large piece, and small pieces of driftwood should not be expensive. If you buy driftwood from the store, even if it's ready, you should still boil and soak it until it stops leaching tannins (i.e. until it stops staining your water brown/orange). Another good reason to boil driftwood is that the tannins can lower your tank pH a lot, which may be a shock to fish. If you boil it, it won't have any tannins left and therefore won't affect your pH. Good luck
P.S.
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Originally Posted by Harley
do i add my normal fish chemicals to the bucket water too?
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What do you mean by your "normal chemicals"?
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good call.. it is tempting to use nature freebies tho. 