# new driftwood, PO4 spike, dead fish



## darren2337 (Oct 15, 2005)

is it possible that a new piece of driftwood could cause a spike in po4, and could that kill fish? not sure what kind of wood it is. i got if from a friend who bought it at a local pet shop. he had it in an aquarium for 2-3 years with no complications. i did boil it to get it to sink. i teste everything, and po4 was the only thing that was really high. the aquariums been fine for about 6 months. the new wood is the only thing that's changed. i'm in the process of oing a water change now. hope it helps. anyone have any ideas?

thanks


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

I would doubt that a piece of driftwood would cause a spike in your PO4 levels. If you really want to find out place it in a bucket of water for a few days/weeks. Measure the PO4 in the bucket before you place the wood in it and again in a week or two, maybe longer. If there is a difference in PO4 levels then maybe the wood is leaching something into the water column. If not, you would need to look at other sources for the PO4 increase such as dosing, plant food, etc.


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## New 2 Fish (Dec 31, 2004)

Wonder if the guy who used it last used a Neutral Regulator or something similar that would have stored PO4 in the wood and now it is leaching out into your aquarium.....


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

What kind of substrate do you have?


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

darren2337 said:


> is it possible that a new piece of driftwood could cause a spike in po4, and could that kill fish? not sure what kind of wood it is. i got if from a friend who bought it at a local pet shop. he had it in an aquarium for 2-3 years with no complications. i did boil it to get it to sink. i teste everything, and po4 was the only thing that was really high. the aquariums been fine for about 6 months. the new wood is the only thing that's changed. i'm in the process of oing a water change now. hope it helps. anyone have any ideas?
> 
> thanks


if your kh is too low you could cause a ph crash from the tannic acid in the wood which would kill your fish but i'm sure you checked your ph already.


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## soyadude (Dec 17, 2005)

I've faced a similar predicament some time ago... I added two pieces of relatively small pieces of bogwood (about 10 x 4 inches) in my tank once and fishes just started dying. This was in a very well established tank with some mature fish and they hardly ever die on me. The older ones started dying first. The fishes kept turning up dead until I realized it was the bogwood that I added last and removed them. The fishes stopped dying after about a week and several water changes. I'm more careful with adding newly purchased bogwood now (espescially the ones sold dried). I'd alternate between soaking and sunning the pieces before using them and I soak them with bags of activated carbon to absorb some possibly harmful chems and excess tannins.

Since you mentioned that the driftwood was used by the LFS selling it, if it was in a medicated/poorly mantained tank/disease infested... I imagine it could maybe still have a touch of it's old tankmates on it.

I'd suggest removing the newly added driftwood pieces, check the fish for parasites(medicate as necessary), monitor and adjust water chemistry and make some regular water changes (10%-20%) daily with dechlorinated water.

Cheers and good luck.

p/s: I don't know the PH/hardness/temperature of your local water.. so if you decide to make daily water changes.. be careful. Mine seems to do fine right off the tap(tapwater not from mains).


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