I just purchase a nice piece of driftwood for my fish tank. What is the proper way of preparing it for the tank. I am boiling it right now. Will that be sufficient? Or should i do more before placing it in there.

Is it actually driftwood? if you purchased it from a fish store, it could well be something like mopani which is not drift wood. it's always a good job to make sure that you are not introducing anything nasty into your tank. So seeking it for a period of time is sometimes a good idea. You could boil it, I've not because the stuff I use is around 4 foot long. It came from a reliable source so I put in my tank I've not had any problems.

I would say that it was a reliable source. The lfs guranteed no snails or harmful toxins. The tag they had on it said malaysian wood.

if its is a like you say for aquarium use after you boil you might want to soak it to release any tanins that might be in it. i usually soak my driftwood for about a week to release as much of the tanins as possible. i do this because even though tanins are not harmfull to fish i personally dont like the colour of the water with them present.

this is Malaysia mangroves driftwood which probably will not discolor your water. Even if it does, it only lasts a matter of weeks, maybe a few months. It just requires rinsing off, or if you want to, soak it for a couple of days.

I boiled it for about an hour. I am soaking it now and it is staining the water in the bucket. I will probably soak it for awhile because i really dont want to stain my aquarium water.

i looked at buying some driftwood at my lfs and they said the pre-soaked wood just needed a soak for a day or so and a good rinse.... whereas the cheaper stuff they had needed to be soaked for six months....

Wow six months is a long time. The stuff i bought was fairly cheap. Hope it doesnt take that long.

thats why i didnt buy any.... and i didnt want to spend a fortch on wood

Not really sure why it would have to be soaked for six months. If the shop is telling you this then I would definitely steer away from buying this type of product from them. If the fish store are selling wood for an aquarium hen it should be virtually ready to go straight in, not wait six months.

You get what you pay for, decent wood is not cheap. I paid over £100 for my two pieces off wood and it needed no prep, it went straight in my tank. It did stain the water for a few weeks but that is not a problem that you need to worry about.

I live near the Mississippi river have often come across drift wood that I would have liked to add to an aquarium. I was wondering if soaking the piece in a strong solution of bleach water, changing the solution every couple of days for a week or so would be sufficent.

I don't think Bleach is a good idea... Just make sure it is a hard piece of wood meaning no pine or soft wood, because it will rot... Then if you go to the DIY section of this wonderful forum, it will walk you through what to do with it...