How to stop driftwood from lowering PH?

I was looking into getting some driftwood/cholla wood in one of my shrimp tanks, I think it would look nice. However... I heard that it will lower my PH. Will it lower my PH? And can I stop it from doing so? The shrimp are red cherries.

 

My tank is full of driftwood with the intention of lowering the ph, however, it hasn't budged at all in the past four months or so.

 

I agree with Maxine. I have two big pieces of drift wood in my tank and my ph has not changed. I have them for 6-7 months

 

Yeah, in theory driftwood will lower your ph. But it only does marginally. If you are really concerned about ph lowering, you could boil it a bit and it will reduce the ph lowering to some degree. However, do not boil it too much.

 

The reason that you Ph values are not dropping, is because you are not using the correct wood.
" Driftwood " , is exactly that, and most likely will not lower the PH.
The correct wood to use for lowering Ph is called " Bogwood " and is, as it says from a bog, where it has been under the ground for many years and has putrified and absorbed all the minerals etc from mostly peat within the bog.
This is available from LFS and is the only safe wood to use in an Aquarium, as its been specially treated - that's why its expensive.

 

Sorry I don't understand. Why is bogwood the "only" safe wood for the aquarium?

 

I have driftwood in 2 of my tanks and the pH is only lowered marginally. Not very much. Unless you have a ton of driftwood I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Driftwood doesn't lower pH, it's the tannins released that stain the water brown that lower the pH.

 

So if I boil the driftwood, it will get rid of the tannins?

 

So if I boil the driftwood, it will get rid of the tannins?

Boiling will help as will soaking it in water.

 

I soaked a piece for well over a month. I poured the water off every other day and replaced it with very hot water. For the first couple of weeks the water was pretty brown after a couple of days. It finally got to where it took several days for the water to start getting any color to it. The final week it just barely changed so I decided it was ready for my tank.

I was concerned about it lowering my ph so checked the ph of the water it was soaking in and it didn't change it at all even after soaking for well over a week. I really didn't expect it to lower it much, if at all, in that length of time but was still pleased to see that it didn't.

 

" Bogwood " sourced from a LFS that is correctly packaged Etc, will have been treated to prevent any microbes Etc which will be inside the woods structure from infecting the tank with potential diseases.
This wood is specially selected from mainly bogs that have a high content of rotted veggie material ( Peat especially ) and then sterilized using an Autoclave Oven, where the wood is baked for many hours under a low temperature to kill all the nasty stuff.
Hence the expensive cost of this product.
Any other wood sourced from just a place you walked the dog, will " potentially " have all kind of nasties inside it, and by using this kind of wood you run a real risk of harming your fish through an introduced kind of poisoning. Caleb12345 is 100% correct in stating that it isn't the actual wood that reduces the Ph, but the tannins which are held inside.
As I previously stated the wood is sourced from bogs that have a high amount of peat content, and its this peat which the wood as absorbed through putrification that lowers the Ph when it leaches out.

 

" Bogwood " sourced from a LFS that is correctly packaged Etc, will have been treated to prevent any microbes Etc which will be inside the woods structure from infecting the tank with potential diseases.
This wood is specially selected from mainly bogs that have a high content of rotted veggie material ( Peat especially ) and then sterilized using an Autoclave Oven, where the wood is baked for many hours under a low temperature to kill all the nasty stuff.
Hence the expensive cost of this product.
Any other wood sourced from just a place you walked the dog, will " potentially " have all kind of nasties inside it, and by using this kind of wood you run a real risk of harming your fish through an introduced kind of poisoning. @ is 100% correct in stating that it isn't the actual wood that reduces the Ph, but the tannins which are held inside.
As I previously stated the wood is sourced from bogs that have a high amount of peat content, and its this peat which the wood as absorbed through putrification that lowers the Ph when it leaches out.

I am really confused by this post lol. Are you saying that "bogwood" is basically any wood that is from the pet store that has been dried out and everything or is it literally only wood labeled "bogwood?"

I have gotten other woods from the pet store called Maylasian driftwood that was sandblasted. It never changed the PH of my tank. I did boil it once just in case, but no soaking or anything sank right away. It's perfectly safe for aquariums.

 

Bogwood is wood dug up from peat bogs. It has been preserved by the very acidic conditions of the bog. It doesn't absorb peat, but it does tend to leach out a lot of tannins to start with.

There are many species of wood that are totally safe to use. Wood that has not been near water, as long as it has fully dried, cannot harm fish unless it's a toxic species. More people use roots and branches than bogwood, I feel, so it's obviously safe...

 

Bogwood, is as it says - from a bog.
Any other kind of wood from a LFS could be the kind that your Lizards and Snakes like to climb over.
As @ hampalong as eluded too, if you don't know exactly where the wood came from, or its species and possible toxicity , don't take the risk.