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How can i tell if a piece of drift wood is good, and won't decay and go brown in an aquarium??

Thanks!
Ku,

wood that is heavy for its size that you can't easily indent with your fingernail might be a good first test. When you scratch it, the fibers should not flake apart.

Pretty much any wood will leech some tannins into the water. Boiling, lots of soaking, or carbon filtration are ways to limit the browning.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

To answer that question fully could fill a page easy. First you would have to have an excellent knowledge of wood technology and where it is grown.

Hardness is a good choice as far as breaking down with age. There is an Aussie wood that would take about 100+ years to break dowm it is a River Red Gum I have several pieces in my tank and it does not release tannins. Yet there could easly be plenty of harder species of wood that will release tannins.
It is a matter of asking and that is exactly what you are doing here on FP. Local knowledge of what you can buy is certainly the best.

As far as boiling to me that is a big NONO as it starts to break down the timber very quickly. A good scrubbing and soaking for up to one month in my opinion is the best way to go.

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Keith

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