Sammie:
Hee Hee - I am hijacking, too!
I am by no means an expert on the subject, but here's my 'wood' experience, for what its worth...
A couple days ago, I got a piece of wood at the aquarium store to gently bring down the ph in my tank. The 'ph down' chemical wasn't really working and I didn't want to burn my Betta, Baby Blue.
I had read that all the fishes I had selected for my tank preferred a more acid (low ph) environment, and our local water is on the alkaline (high ph) side. As for the tea color of the 'wooded' water, my tank has a very natural stream bed look to it, so the tannin I felt would not 'ruining' the effect I was going for, but will enhance it.
I felt the wood over and not finding any really sharp edges, made my purchase.
I rinsed the wood well in super hot tap water then put it in a super hot bucket of tap water overnight. By the morning, the bucket water looked like strong tea, from the tannins that the wood released. I drained the bucket and did it again.
At the end of the second day (today), before I added the wood, I did my water testing.
I found that slightly lowering the water level in my five gallon tank allowed my waterfall filter to aerate the water better and after adding a bacterial booster my tank was finally cycled - after 8 weeks! My tank was at 0 ammonia with API Test one week after the last 25% water change. Awesome!
<<Start Celebration: I did it, I did it, oh yeah, yeah, yeah! (doing my Dori victory dance) /End Celebration>>
Anyway, back to the wood! In the middle of a ten percent water change (w/ Aqueon Betta Bowl Plus to dechlorinate and 'tame' the new water), I put the wood in.
No one was crushed or squashed in the process, I am happy to report. Currently, my Ghost Shrimp have taken over the wood and are infesting it!
So there you go... that's my wood (and tank cycling) odyssey! Good Luck to you.
Cheryl