For some aquarists, the addition of driftwood to a tank is a real pleasure, an added element of authenticity that raises the gravel and plastic-plant habitat to a level that strats to emulate real-world conditions.

Be warned. Driftwood comes in different forms, some of them easy to condition, some of them a real pain in the ass. First, you must choose driftwood that, when soaked for an appropriate period of time, sinks. I conditioned a piece of wood found in wilderness waters. It's beautiful, marbled, and almost perfectly round, a real rare find. But after 10 hours of boiling, it refuses to sink. Its bouyancy cannot be overcome. I guess I'll put it on a windowsill.

Second, Malaysian driftwood (you buy it at an LFS), as gorgeous as it is, is very difficult to rid of tannins, the water-staining brown-ness that aquarists dread. I've soaked it in buckets of regularly changed water for nearly a month, and boiled it for about 16 hours. It still leaks. Not worth the effort, in my opinion, although I'll keep trying for a few more weeks.

The best kind of driftwood I've found at my LFS is African-lake driftwood. Without any boiling, I leached its tannins in two-weeks worth of bucket soakings. It's gorgeous, with the sorts of curves and grain you'd expect to find in a haunted forest. I recommend it highly. It will form cloudy white algae in its first month of use in the tank, but don't panic. The algae clears up, and many of the algae clots will come off with the suction of a water change.