# Mopani Wood Tannins?



## Theraggy1 (Jan 30, 2011)

Ok, so on Friday I ordered a large order of fish supplies and am still waiting on it to arrive. 

However, one of those things was a large hunk of Mopani Wood for my new 20gallon ( The ruler of the tank is a silver dragon PK). I know you have to boil it at least 4 times to leach most of the tannins out so it won't discolor the water. 
But, I was thinking bettas like tannins, and was wondering if it would be wise to condense some of these tannins down and bottle them up to use? 

Cause I know we often use oak leaves and IAL just for the tannins they release.However would mopani wood tannins work the same way? I know they are safe for fish I just wanna know if they would be useful.


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## Theraggy1 (Jan 30, 2011)

Anyone?


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## thekoimaiden (Oct 19, 2011)

I'm a little confused. You want to boil the wood to get rid of the tannins and then bottle them up to ... put them in the water ? If you want some tannins in the water just put the driftwood in the tank. The tannins won't stay forever and after a few months will be all gone.


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## Theraggy1 (Jan 30, 2011)

No no, what i'm trying to say is I don't want them in my main tank, however I have a total of 6 tanks and three of which are just filled with bettas. 

I was wondering if the Mopani tannins would hurt them.


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## thekoimaiden (Oct 19, 2011)

The tannins wouldn't hurt them at all. The only problem I see is that tannins are removed with water changes. You have to add a lot of "tannin water" after every change to keep that same level or the tannins will only be temporary. If you want tannins in with your bettas why not order some driftwood for their tanks. I think you can also order IAL extract. That seems a little easier than trying to extract the tannins yourself.


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## OMB (Nov 6, 2011)

Theraggy1 said:


> ....
> But, I was thinking bettas like tannins, and was wondering if it would be wise to condense some of these tannins down and bottle them up to use?
> 
> Cause I know we often use oak leaves and IAL just for the tannins they release.However would mopani wood tannins work the same way? I know they are safe for fish I just wanna know if they would be useful.


I get what you're saying. I thought the same thing when I boiled my driftwood to get much of the tannins out before putting it in my tank (where it still released tannins, but after about 5 water changes I can see that it's starting to go away...whereas I'm sure it would have taken much longer to get it clear had I not boiled it first.) I had a bucket of clean water full of tannins and I thought about saving it for use later. I didn't though... but I kinda wondered the same thing. Should I have saved that water to use for later, sort of like keeping a bottle of stress coat or meds? 

Anyone know?


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