Mystery of bog wood and hair algae outbreak

[SteveMid]

I have plucked up courage to post a thread about algae. Hopefully I won’t regret it 😂.

A few months ago I set up a 40litre low tech planted tank primarily to house/breed shrimp. I bought some attractive looking bog wood from a local reputable aquarium shop as part of the hard scape. Whilst there I bought another piece to add to my main 240litre well-established planted tank (a higher tech set up with CO2 injection). The first picture is the newly planted 40L tank after about 3 weeks of cycling.

When I was happy parameters were ok I added some shrimp and all seemed well. Then I got a big outbreak of hair algae - ok so it was a new set up - so these things happen right?…but I also got a simultaneous outbreak in my established 240L tank (2 years old). Which I had placed the other piece of wood. See picture 2 of hair algae outbreak.

I started to lose a couple of shrimps in the new tank and started to pick up small amounts of nitrite when I tested and even with daily water changes it was still there. In the end I removed the wood from both tanks. Carried out big water changes and even had to do a 4 day blackout on my main 240L tank.
Eventually all settled down and the hair algae eventually disappeared from both tanks. See last picture which is the shrimp tank now. All is fine and I have a perfectly healthy breeding population of shrimp. No algae at all.

I took one of the pieces of wood and put in freshly conditioned tap water over night and picked up ammonia in the test the next day (I think it was ~0.5ppm. I double checked the tap water had 0ppm ammonia in it. I concluded the wood must have been leaching out something that caused this unless it was a huge coincidence.
Has anyone else experienced this phenomena in their tanks. Other than tannins, I thought bog wood was relatively inert/harmless. Was it a dodgy batch of wood? 🤷🏼‍♂️
I’d love to have some bogwood in one of my tanks but I feel I have had my fingers burnt. Should I have prepared it differently prior to adding to tank? I hoping some of the knowledge on this forum will help me understand. Thanks

 

[castle]

I don’t have any evidence, but it’s pretty common for wood to leech more than tannins. Getting an ammonia reading should confirm that 👍

Often, wood isn’t fully dried out especially true in bigger bits.

 

[Tim Harrison]

If you have a water butt, soak in that for a few months. Or alternatively soak it in a container and change the water every so often until it becomes clear with zero ammonia. Should then be okay to add to your tanks.

 

[SteveMid]

If you have a water butt, soak in that for a few months. Or alternatively soak it in a container and change the water every so often until it becomes clear with zero ammonia. Should then be okay to add to your tanks.

Thanks. I only soaked for 3 days. Perhaps I’ll try again with some new pieces. I may have been a little hasty in throwing the wood away 🙈.

 

[SteveMid]

If you have a water butt, soak in that for a few months. Or alternatively soak it in a container and change the water every so often until it becomes clear with zero ammonia. Should then be okay to add to your tanks.

I am interested, though, whether others have experienced an algae outbreak caused in a similar way to this I can’t imagine many people soak their bogwood for months before using it.

 

[Tim Harrison]

Yes I have several times. And so have many capable scalpers. I think that with increase in demand and the desire for new types of dead wood to create new and interesting scapes there is a lot on the market now that isn’t really suited for use as hardscape. It can actively rot and release organic compounds which lead to algal outbreaks. Back in the day there was just bog wood and that’d plenty of time to mature, and harden, and only released tannins.