I purchased some driftwood from marketplace and boiled it for a few hours yesterday. I noticed when transferring the used water to a watering can to use on outdoor plants that the water is bubbly when agitated, is this expected or could there have been soap on the wood? It didnt smell like any cleaners but I'm worried since I've already added the wood to my aquarium (no fish, tank is currently cycling).
Posted by Ok-Television94
3 Comments
It will do. Mix of bio film and tannins
Have you ever heard of soap nuts? Ancient way of washing things. Some plants and trees are high in saponins which are used in soaps, fire extiguishers, and root beer to produce those foamy bubbles.
The wood you picked likely has saponins in it. You can read more about them online, pretty cool stuff to learn about. Like I didn’t know oats and spinach contained some saponins too! Crazy.
You can see “soapy” bubbles after heavy rains in the fall in areas with fall leaf shed too, it’s totally normal