This Tank Is Completely RUINED! (It's Bad) 

It stinks (pun intended) that I had so many issues with this tank, but it could be a good learning opportunity. Have any of you experienced anything like this before and if so, what type of driftwood was it? Before now, I've never seen anything like this before and I've scaped a lot of tanks. Also, how do you think the new scape compares to the original?

This shows you.. not even the professionals have a 100% success rate, thank you for actually sharing it and not hiding it away like most other content creators. 😁😁

I first started keeping aquariums and terrariums back in the early 80's. I believe your problem is that what you have is not true driftwood. "Dragonwood" is actually woody vine. I see so many types of "wood" sold in the aquarium hobby trade which are not as good as true driftwood (such as grapevine). These pieces of "wood" may have interesting shapes and textures. They haven't reached a stage of stable decomposition where they can be kept submerged for an extended period of time. In essence, it smells because it is not just developing a biofilm, but it is literally rotting in your tank. True driftwood are pieces of dead deciduous trees that have been submerged for a long time so that all that is left is lignin. There's not much else left to quickly rot when it's submerged. Also, some of the initial tannins have been secreted out. This is why true driftwood often floats and needs to be weighted. This doesn't mean someone cannot use other types of dead wood, but there's a gamble of its suitability and longevity underwater. There are types of wood being sold on the market that are dense, less porous, and not truly decayed. Therefore, these not prone to rapid decay underwater but do contain most of their inherent tannins (such as mopani or "Malaysian driftwood").

When you were "swimming" I laughed so hard I started crying and couldn't catch my breath. That is the funniest thing I have seen I swear, it was so unexpected

There are some tricks to cut down the time of "seasoning" of the wood. First (and kinda obvious) you gotta remove all sapwood (the soft part) with a knife or some scrubber. Boiling the rest for a long time (up to a day) helps. Boiling it in salt water also helps. But mostly you need time in the water so the wood can leach out everything. If you leave it in the dry, you will never be able to use it on an aquarium.

That stuff leeching out the driftwood looked stinky, lol, I can only imagine 🤭 this really shows the importance of cycling a tank and not just throwing live animals in a fresh set up. Although I can't wait to see Pancake and Flapjack in a proper aquarium, they're going to love the new one once it's deemed safe and blend so well with the leaves and flat stones. Thanks for showing the fails too xx

LMAO! TANNER TOAD SWIMMING AT THE END, LOL

The one dislike is from the driftwood

It's just as important to show when things go awry and how you deal with it as when everything goes fine. I like the new look and think mostly moss would be a good way to go.

I had a piece of what's sold here as "gold vine" go bad but I didn't work out where the problem was for months. That tank must have had a high mold spore load as uneaten food would become furry very quickly and fish constantly had health problems despite very clean water from many many water changes. I finally decided to give up and take the tank down and immediately when I got the wood out of the water the smell was obvious even though the wood looked fine. It had actually rotted from the centre out and was mushy with a harder shell. So glad that tank is back to normal now.

I love how the frogs eat, stuffing their mouths with both hands. 😁 New tank looks great, I can't wait to see them in there!

When I saw the thumbnail, I got scared it was the pea puffer setup. I’m glad it was an un-stocked tank. Since the thin parts of the dragon root seemed to season okay, I wonder it they could be used in a riparian setup, although I’d still be nervous to stock it.

I just want to say that I’ve been watching you for a few years now and it’s been awesome seeing you become more comfortable showing your sense of humor and personality! I’ve genuinely laughed out loud the last few videos at the little Tanner pop-ups 😂

Sounds like some anaerobic bacteria were feasting on the wood. Glad you got it out if it was making that much sulfide

When he talked about the smell of the wood I got flashbacks from my 33g who also went bad and I had to scoop all the soil and substrate out which also had the smell of the wood in it. 🤢

I almost nearly sniffed my phone to see if I could smell the wood 😆

I got my drift wood from the Mississippi river. Its the root of a cedar tree I imagine grew on a bluff because it's so odd. I noticed it had one black mold spot that pops up and I clean that spot every few months and it's big around a a finger nail. Its hollow inside so I scraped the bug rot out and it's great. My betta loves the top because I have a plat growing up there and there a notch missing so he enters there. I have the air line running down the inside and out. Its fingers off at the bottom and you'd never notice the gap in one leg but in side that lives two koli loachs. My bristle none pleco keeps it clean.i can wait for the river to do down in the summer because drift wood will be everywhere.

The thumbnails and editing are getting out of hand 😂😂

Too bad about the Dragon Root it was some really neat looking wood, but nice rebound with the Malaysian wood. Tank looks great!

I really respect the fact that even as professional as your setups are you still show flaw and failure with the success

I literally lost it when you were “swimming” in the tank 😂😂😂😂😂

7:13 always with cheeky surprise lmao. love it

It’s somehow comforting to see you, one of the kings of aquariums and terrariums, make mistakes. It happens to all of us. Thank you for sharing, and I’m excited to see what you come up with for the toads next!

Tanner, you swimming in at the end there had me in stitches.

I do like the pop of color the plants provided in the original set up so maybe just add a few to the new one?

I adore how playful you've been with editing recently. It's always such a delight to see something quirky and you have a gift for it :D

I set up a nano waterfall tank with the same wood a year ago. I foamed the wood into the structure of my setup, so I have been stuck dealing with the decomposition of the wood. One submerged piece seems to have stabilized. Another that is half in submerged continues to mold though. I have to spray the water's surface every day to combat a moldy scum that forms. It's slowly getting colonized by moss and liverwort. I hold out hope that one day this tank will prevail and get inhabitants. Thanks for sharing your experience with this devil wood!

As someone who runs into the fungus wood thing a lot, I'll suggest a couple things to help next time you come across it. 1- Water filter with good tank circulation. And 2- An algae eater (I suggest bristlenose catfish) With these two things, your unlikely have any more issues with the fungus. The fish will eat it, and the yukky particles will clear up with the filter, all while less will grow with water moment. Of course you'll need the tank heated a little for the fish but thats about it.

Last weekend as I went out prospecting for gold on a claim my friend paid into I collected different types of moss and plant life. The next week I picked up a large jar with a latch a seal like you used in your native terrarium, with a little activated carbon, while I was gold panning I collected rocks for a false bottom, and made my own native terrarium. It's beautiful and the whole process brought me enjoyment, now I just need springtails and other little critters for it! Thanks for all the informative videos and the inspiration tanner I appreciate you!

Had the same happen to my scape, after 3 months of water changes and scrubbing I started up the aquarium and never had a problem with the wood since then.

I lost it when you greenscreened yourself swimming with the toads 😂

Tanner!!!! I am literally going through this right now with dragonwood! It’s been almost two months of 90% water changes with only slight improvement at this point. I packed the filter with anything I could think (carbon, chemi pure, fine floss, purigen, I can’t even remember what else), got a UV sterilizer, even tried bottled bacteria as a Hail Mary in case it was an epic bacterial battle. The water when changed was a murky charcoal color. Like you, I’ve never seen anything like it! It’s a much smaller tank, thankfully (17g). The biofilm is insane...it even grows on the glass and waves like hair in the water flow. THANK YOU for posting this so I could help figure out it IS the wood, as I suspected! You’re awesome. Mopani FTW!

Bro, when you said "I've just about lost my patience with it", I did a double take. You're a patient man, Mr. Tanner. Glad the new scape of the same tank turned out looking great.

I had this happen with my first real fish tank... total disaster. Unfortunately I had already stocked the tank and lost all of my fish. Took me a long time to figure out what went wrong, but once I did I gave aquarium keeping another shot and found success. Love the videos. Been subscribed since my senior year of high school and I’m now in my senior year of college. Your videos are extremely inspiring to me. Thanks for putting in so much effort in your art.

7:15 You're welcome :)

I had a similar issue, there was no smell, but the driftwood was obviously not matured enough. The wood would constantly have fuzz all over it. I constantly scrubbed it, did water changes, but 4 months later I gave up because all of my plants were dying, and barely growing (i have 2 other tanks, and have some experience, so it's not my process or ferts or w/e). I rescaped, removing the wood. 8 months into the new scape, no issues, it's a jungle!

I love the failure repairs as much as the new builds, honestly. It's nice to see the approach to something like that, and helps me feel a bit better about my terrarium failures. Also swimming with the frogs reminded me to hit the thumbs up you will deserve, love it

Hey @SerpaDesign, I have had this problem before aswell. I solved it by redoing the scape (with the same wood) and adding extra filtration and flow for a while. I took out all the wood and sprayed it off with hot water in the shower. With the wood out of the tank i scrubbed down every surface in the aquarium and did a good gravel vac and did two 100% waterchanges (all the botanicals were thrown away). After that I placed an extra filter on the tank and added a couple of amanoshrimp (Caridina Multidentata). This completely solved the problem for me. I let it cycle like this for 10 weeks, after that I took out the extra filtration and let it cycle for 2 more weeks after which i slowly stocked my tank.

You've inspired me to start making terrariums and collecting plants, now i have four successful mini terrariums, some succulents, and a bowl of moss balls (can't remember name rn) and I'm hopefully gonna get some fish and reptiles and set up some lovely tanks soon. Thank you so much for making videos, and i hope your projects all go well :D

Good rebuild. Yeah I think a few plants with long drooping grass like fronds would look great gently waving around in the tank.

Something similar happened to my tank, I didn’t have a proper drainage layer so the soil went bad, I finally gave up and just re-did the whole thing 🤦🏼‍♀️ lesson WELL learned

Tanner, I found my first ring neck snake after 6 years of my last time seeing one! I got so excited

Gotta love when the plant matter decays in water and produces sewer gas, you should see how bad it smells when this happens in a large bottle terrarium and you decide to open it bc you notice a few plants are missing and there is some mold here and there

LOL the clip of you "swimming" with the surinames, love the content and am excited to see how this set-up goes, best wishes, see you next time!!

Actually so helpful to see a video where a tank fails (for whatever reason), and is recovered. This is so useful and honest. AND we actually see the final project for the surname toads, great vid.

Pancake and Flapjack are absolutely beautiful! Thank you for sharing this Tanner that's how we all learn is by sharing our experiences!! The Driftwood was extremely beautiful, but as you said if it doesn't work... it just doesn't work.. would it even be safe to use in a terrarium type setup? I really did enjoy the build of this Aquarium!! It definitely still looks fabulous maybe even better!! Another great video!! They're at the end I saw a third one.. I think he should be named crepe 😂😂 I hope you and your family are having a very blessed week! Thanks again for sharing! 🙏🌿🐸💚🐸🌿

Not every project is perfect. I appreciate that you are humble enough to show failure. On the plus side, you got a great video from it!

Somestimes things just don't work out but I'm glad you were able to solve the problem. The toads are so interesting! I really love to watch them.

For whatever sort of future setup you give your Pipa I'd suggest using some kind of larger grained sand like pool filter sand, rather than rocks, these animals really dont come from substrates of river stones in the wild, instead coming from sand and dirt and mud with layers of leaf litter and detritus on top of it so I had a lot of doubts about if the tank would even be viable long term for them

I bought one thick branch piece type of wood light in colour, it was for my betta tank, it had been in over night, and in the morning I noticed a clear coating developing on it, I took it out of the tank, and it was covered in a very slippery slime. I’d never experienced this before, when I asked the fish store owners wife about it, she said it was perfectly normal, and fish eat the slime, which I again had never heard off, she also mentioned it was because the wood hadn’t been cured, I’ve never heard to much bull. 🤔🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Shows the wisdom of letting a tank mature and season, especially when using materials that are new to you. It looked purely gross, Tanner! I feel sorry for the toads living in such basic conditions! I'm sure they don't mind. It's probably just a human thing. When will they get moved to their new tank?

I just had this happen to me as well with a betta tank. I had a Mopani wood stump with plants. I knew something was wrong when my java ferns started dying. Pulled out the wood and the only way to describe the smell was death.

Dude your extra little animations/intro things are so fun. I have been watching for a while and always thought you’re an awesome producer. Those stepped it up

The way those toads really utilize their hands to eat by shoving food in their mouths is so interesting and hilarious 😂

I ran into this same problem with Manzanita driftwood several years back, but it did clear up on its own. However, what's interesting is that I used some pieces of manzanita in a terrarium, and others in an aquarium. That aquarium was since dismantled and it's amazing to feel how the wood changed from its time in the water. Manzanita that has been in the aquarium for a few years comes out feeling much lighter than the manzanita that sat in a dry environment. That made me wonder what was really going on in the aquarium when it started leaching out that substance. I think you found out. I will definitely not put unseasoned manzanita back into an aquarium directly in the future. If you had a bucket you could leave outside in the springtime, maybe you can still season the dragonwood over a period of months. Just let the decomposition process run its course, eventually it will stop decomposing what's left will be the true driftwood.

Can't wait to see what you make of the new tanks! But knowing you it will be awesome!

Hey Tanner. Really enjoyed this video. The first tank I built had the same issue. I pulled the wood out last week and had the same condition I am seeing in your video. Nice to know you have challenges at times as well.

i love how flap jack chews his food daintily but pancake just gulps it all down in one big gulp! LOL

One good thing about waking up at 6:00 am is making it early to a SerpaDesign video!

So glad you shared a failed tank. So many content creators try to act like they don’t mistakes and everything will go perfect if you follow their guides. But stuff like this can happen.

Pressure wash with the wood moldy don’t let it dry. Soak the wood in hot(boiling) water for 1 day then soak it in small bleach solution for 1 day. Soak it in regular water 3rd day. Pressure wash again. Happened once for a piece of drift wood I had. Horrible smell like you said. But after this process...never had any issues. Good luck.

I love that you show your problem designs as well, it's refreshing to know that even pros aren't perfect.

I appreciate your honesty. Your brand of video presentation is unique, real, and focused. I enjoy following your progress, successes, and failures. Though this tank didn't work out for this reason or that, you are still left with a beautiful custom tank, and a new world of options for it. Thanks for what you do, showing us how, showing us what has worked, trying new ideas, a real hobbyist approach to perfecting the craft, in your own way. Well done!

I'm so glad you take the time to show failures as well as success. I'm going through my first battle with an ich outbreak in my freshwater community tank, and it's really reassuring to see that even the pros have struggles!

I had a similar issue, however I also used the chalk treasure chest slow feeder which killed my water quality. The wood changed the color of my tank to a tan color. The wood looks great, but I took it all out and went back to Dragon Stone.

I see you put the rotten wood away in your garage or something: I recommend leaving it outside in your garden for a year or so This will allow it to get cleaned by weather and the various micro life of the soil which will remove most of the bad things Then to use it again you can store it back in the garage to dry for a few weeks, then boil it (or pour boiling water on it)

Dude just had a similar thing happen with my new setup and the wood in there had a thick foggy film on it for over 3 weeks hoping it would fad away. Took it out and there was like blue black mold under film on wood.. smelled great.. cleaned it off with hit water and cleaned 75 water change hope for best

Hey I had this issue about two weeks ago and had to rescape the tank the reason is that the wood is too soft so it rots really easy when submerged I had sandblasted grapevine. Great video as always keep up the great work

love the plywood look with the brass fittings..room got that 'victorian' vibe going

Tanner I am in love with the new subscription reminder breaks in the videos. They get me everytime.

I had many aquariums 30 yrs. ago and always boiled the wood. And yes, it was not easy with big ones but i got a huge water pot for fireplaces people used in the past, we used it still to heat up our water for the bath. Never had problems after boiling the wood 1 hour.

Honestly... I probably would've just dumped some nerites, mystery snails, and bladder snails in there and see what happened haha. I'm always amazed at what those 3 can do, and I love that the stuff the mystery and bladder snails don't mow down the nerites come behind and get.

i just started soaking some wood, seasoning i think you called it. i collected my own. found some rad roots and stumps and branches. i havnt as of yet identified the wood type but its not any type of pine, i dont think its acorn either from the left over bark. give it some monthsn to soak, and ill have a gander .

Oh I can`t wait to see where that Schefflera is going to wind up! Schefflera is one of my favourite plants because of how cooperative it is. It can handle different light and water levels (within reason, of course) and it responds to pruning super well and much of what you prune off propagates very easily, so you can really customize it if you have a particular vision in mind and it will play along. I can imagine you using it to bring something amazing to life!

I have 2 large pieces of millennium wood (5-6 foot pieces )which I think is what you had I left them soaking for 2-3 weeks with lots of water changes and scrubbing !!! The bio film has gone on 1 piece with the help of corys and plecs , but 5here is a horrible smell from the other piece . There is still a sap like substance slowly leaking from the other piece . Don’t give up it can be a long process with some woods .

This is usually a problem with aeration/oxygenation, since the sulfur smell is hydrogen sulfide gas being produced by anaerobic bacteria, and the slime is from the biofilm produced by abundant anoxic bacterial species enjoying the environment. The type of driftwood does not matter, what matters is how spongy it is. Good aquarium driftwood should actually be fairly tough and rot slowly, and by "rot" we mean the bacterial decomposition. ALL driftwood is rotting but it should be slowly, too rapid and the bacteria can use up all the oxygen, creating larger and larger pockets of anaerobic activity which is why you have the sulfur smell. You can usually alleviate this with strong circulation and additional aeration, but that is not always the best option for your design.

We've all been there. Thanks for documenting/sharing.

You need to put that stinky driftwood into a running stream. Applewood, used by a friend of mine, is also sappy and nasty-smelling if not seasoned properly. He puts it in a deep bucket and leaves it outside under a dripping bit of roof guttering for a year (which means the water completely refreshes itself every time it rains. Less workload for him). If you do put the driftwood in a running stream, you need to weight the wood down with rocks without burying it so the wood can be well-flushed without being flushed away during a storm. You'd be surprised how long some tree wood will remain stinky - I've pulled bits out of the stream to find it still honks 3 months later, but it's normally stopped after 4 months.

I feel so proud of this guy, his content is always so professional and wholesome. Thank you for always making me feel inspired at 3am to make my own paludarium :)

Thanks for sharing the things that don’t go so well! We all learn from it.

its rlly cool that you can share your mistakes, makes me feel okay in messing up knowing that pro's like you can still make mistake and fix them no problem.

Hi Tanner! The new scape looks really good! I just finished watching the one where you added pancake and flapjack into it. They seemed really happy. It was fun watching you feed them. It's cute the way they use their hands to eat. Thank you so much for sharing!

I recently had this problem in my tank with 2 year old manzanita branches on my indoor aquarium. I scraped off the stinky slime and I put it back in to see if it will grow back. It was so disgusting. If it comes back I don't know, maybe I'll boil them for a while to see if that fixes it? Definitely going to take it more seriously now that I've seen what you went through!

i really love your work. one little suggestion is to stick little piece of sponge or sth like that to make the door shut quietly! that will add a little perfection to the tank and maybe less stress to lucky animals who'll live there

Should definitely try dragon wood again smaller branches maybe? For a smaller build? Make sure it’s seasoned. It’s a beautiful material

That was NOT a clean up job I would have wanted! Great Job on new set up though! I have never seen frogs like that. Omg, they are just too cute! LOVE their names!! Their feet are just too beautiful! Just wanna hug them up!🤗

It's great that you show failures as well with the analysis what went wrong for people to learn from mistakes! Is there a way to prevent driftwood from having that problem? Boiling it maybe for some hours? Or it just needs to wait a few years in a dry attic to season properly and there's no faster way Ed: I can see others commenting about boiling and seasoning in salt water that leaving it dry will halt the seasoning process

Glad the toads will get a nice cleaner home! I think a few plants would complement the moss and toads well.

flapjack using his little hands to eat his worms omg such a sweetie

That was an amazing biotope-style tank! My hypothesis is that the wood attracted yeasts and bacteria, which started eating the wood. The smells you describe are byproducts of sugar and protein metabolism. You can try soaking the wood in a tub of bleach and sodium hydroxide for a month with weekly bleach changes if you ever want to try again. That should destroy enough of the nutritional value at the surface of the wood and any spores present!

I lost it when you were swimming with the toads! LOL!! I've had some issues with driftwood too! The slime stayed longer than anticipated and so I ended up taking it out. It didn't affect the whole tank though, but it was a much smaller amount of wood than what you had.

Lmao! The subscribe pitch lol

I love the new set up. I can't wait to see the roads swimming in it. 🐸

Aw man, i feel for you about that first tank. I stopped using redmoor wood for that exact reason - more than once the bits I used for my scapes had the slime/mold problem that soured the whole aquarium. The pieces were quite small, so I thought that boiling them out a couple times would fix the issue - nope, nothing helped. I had to scrap the wood entirely and replace it with mopani (never had an issue with it) and malysian driftwood.

Bummer of a set back. I've been dying to see those toads in that setup! But you certainly can't have them swimming around in all that gunk. The redo looks great, though! Definitely looking forward to them getting in there! Soon, little toads! soon....

WOW that is a beautiful multi tank setup. Bravo. def putting this in the memory banks

I recently had a similar problem with a 30 gallon tank, I got the water to crystal clear and more importantly smelling right by using water lettuce and some 20 cent feeder minnows. This tank was literally moldy and smelled like rotten eggs and this not only worked but it worked quickly, the tank was clear by the 3 day mark and the smell was gone on the 5 day mark. I hope this helps anyone with this problem!

Love your honesty dude, and care towards your subscribers, helping them not do the things that didn't work out for you. Top man 👌

Also, it would be cool to have some moss coming down from the wood like a tree and maybe, a red themed tank, there are some nice red plants

To bad about the tank not working out, but I love the new set up and I hope that the toads will like it too!