hi everybody im pretty nrw to all this,its been a while, was wondering if anybody knows if you can add wood form the beach to a tropical tank if its cleaned well or is it a no no??? please help,its because i found a awesome bit of wood that would really look well in my new tank, as it is pretty plain as you will see, pic is in the process
As far if you're meaning it comes from an ocean beach and you wish to put it in a FW tank? I'm not sure of the results or if boiling would be able to release everything or not, but I can guarantee its probably safer to go with wood that spent its time in FW if thats its final destination.
Here's a very good short article on driftwood preparation. I only thought it was a bit vague when it came to specifics on selection. Just be sure I guess that the piece of wood you're using isn't going to ''rot'' in a short period of time. Anything put in your tank should last for years and years undless its exposed to a very hungry Pleco.
Edit: Ideally getting a piece that's already waterlogged will cut a great deal of time out of preparation...2 weeks is a long time to wait when you're excited about aquascaping. :)
thanks so much for your advice my friend, will read over the link, it seems good, mind you i would need a bath or pool to put this wood in, to release any nastys, its nearly 6' ha ha, mybe ill try to buy some, its just near imposible to find a big bit of treated driftwood were i am, and costs a lot of money, probably for a bit the size i want, $200
Yeah it will probably be a hassle to clean and kill anything living on a piece of 6 foot driftwood. I have no experience with cleaning or curing driftwood but I've read that it can be a couple weeks process. It seems like it would be a hassle to boil a piece thats 6 feet too. I bought a couple of nice pieces of Malaysian Driftwood from my lfs a couple months ago. The big one is probably 16 inches in length and probably 10 inches wide cost me about $15. The other piece that is smaller about a foot in length cost me around $10-12.
The reddish color looks wonders in my tank though. Good luck hope we hear of your results!
thanks guys, its a pity, i supose if it was as easy to clean as i thought people wouldnt need to pay big$ for FW wood ha ha, ill maybe save my pennys and buy a good peice,the rocks ive used are from the beach and are fine but i guess there easy to boil, and dont soak up so much, hope my pictures arrive on this site soon, they have been posted, if you get a minute have a look and maybe give me some ideas as to what to put in my plain tank ha ha, my fish are real happy just think they need a bit more to roam in and hide or explore
Holy @$^&#! 6 feet? Heh, good luck boiling a poolful of water lol
I acutally just had a thought....perhaps you can saw it into 1.5'-2' sections and then use some sort of metal, hammer-in staple/silicone to re-attach them. Well-placed plants could hide the staples. From what I understand rusting metal in water doesn't really do a lot of harm either, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. If you REAALLLYY want this piece of wood that's really the best way that I can think of for you to boil it unless you know someone with a 300 gallon vat or something...
Or I guess you could just resort to waiting a lot more time.
I wonder if you couldn't do a diluted scrubbing with bleach, then hose it off for a while, let it dry and hose it again, repeat a few times till there's no bleach smell, then put into tank with a good dose of dechlorinator and leave for a while before adding fish?
i just scrapped the idea, and bought 5 bits of fresh water treated wood, looks well got it pretty cheap, thanks everybody for there opinion, ive updated my pics as my tank progresses, it takes a lot of cash to fill a 600 litre tank ha ha
