Oak Wood To Put In Aquarium

[Mako Man111]

I was just walking through the woods today, and found some really nice large and cool looking pieces of oak wood. It is very hard and all the bark is gone. If I just hoze it off and scrubb it a bit would it be safe to put into the tank?

 

[madmom]

I'd scrub it with a hard bristle or wire brush, boil it in a large pot for a couple of hours to kill anything on or in the wood. Then place it in a large bucket of water or waste can lined with a plastic bag of water for at least a week or until the water is clear changing the water daily or every other day. I think oak has tannins, which turns the water yellowish brown I know acorns do. Then just to be safe scrub it again to remove any left over debris and repeat process. If the piece is to big to fit in the pot boil one half of the wood turn it over then do the other.

 

[Mako Man111]

I'd scrub it with a hard bristle or wire brush, boil it in a large pot for a couple of hours to kill anything on or in the wood. Then place it in a large bucket of water or waste can lined with a plastic bag of water for at least a week or until the water is clear changing the water daily or every other day. I think oak has tannins, which turns the water yellowish brown I know acorns do. Then just to be safe scrub it again to remove any left over debris and repeat process. If the piece is to big to fit in the pot boil one half of the wood turn it over then do the other.

The problem is, the piece is way to big to even consider boiling, it would go in my 105 gallon tank. I just want to save some money as the driftwood from the store is really expensive.

 

[Bignose]

All that boiling and whatnot really is overrated. Here is what is really important: is the wood dried out? You don't want any sap from the tree in your tank. Does it look healthy? It is covered in mold and squishy and soft from being broken down? Obviously if it is, then it is not going in the tank. The biggest thing is that if the wood has been sitting in the woods, how would it acquire fish-specific pathogens? I know you said oak, but you need to make sure, since some woods are mildly toxic, i.e. how no other plants grow under a walnut tree. Do a little research while you leave the wood outside to weather off the ground. If it is not soft, and not green, and research says it is pretty safe, that isn't much reason not to go ahead and use it.

 

[mr.dark-saint]

All that boiling and whatnot really is overrated. Here is what is really important: is the wood dried out? You don't want any sap from the tree in your tank. Does it look healthy? It is covered in mold and squishy and soft from being broken down? Obviously if it is, then it is not going in the tank. The biggest thing is that if the wood has been sitting in the woods, how would it acquire fish-specific pathogens? I know you said oak, but you need to make sure, since some woods are mildly toxic, i.e. how no other plants grow under a walnut tree. Do a little research while you leave the wood outside to weather off the ground. If it is not soft, and not green, and research says it is pretty safe, that isn't much reason not to go ahead and use it.

Oak is high in "Tannin" and not sappy like the evergreens. Whether it's wet or dry "now" when it's in the tank it will release. I always thought about any wood going in to the tank as "tea bags" some will brew up strong and others will do very little.

That log you found better be one immpressive-est thing to even bother with the ordeal you have ahead of you (if you so choose to place it). Like dude mentioned soft wood (rot and such) adds character. Personally I'd get a large barrel full of water and just weigh it down then forget it. Change the water every now and then. I'd recon after a year (depending on the size) it'll be good to go. You might be able to speed this up a bit by hollowing it out .

 

[cs091]

Don't forget that it may not sink! Most wood floats.

You may go through all that palavah to get a raft in your tank!

CS

 

[lozronz]

If you can manage without a bath for a few days, you could soak it in as hot water as you can, the tannin will come out faster in hot water and you can get a idea of what colour your water will go in your tank. If you have a pond you can put it in their for a year or so!

If its really weathered wood or its spent some serious time in a river you might be ok. unlikely I would say though.

 

[madmom]

I did some searching on other sites and found the following:
Both use a trash can lined with a large plastic bag.


To treat uncured Driftwood for use in an Aquarium you should sterilize it by soaking it in a mixture of a quarter cup of chlorox per gallon of water. After such a treatment it will need to be held in a container of fresh untreated water for a period of at least a week, with the water being changed completely daily. Then soak in plain water for a week changing water daily to remove any bleach remaining.

and
Use i cup aquarium salt per every 10 gallons water. Soak it for a week changing water daily and adding salt. Dry the wood out in the sun for a week or so then Soak again for a week changing water daily to make sure all salt is removed.
Remember to clean wood of any loose bits and sand down any edges that are sharp and may hurt the fish.

These are time consuming methods and I don't know how effective they are.

 

[Anthony!]

I think that people are being a little too aggresive in cleaning methods. I managed to get a piece of driftwood that was several feet long, (obviously un-boilable in a pot), laid it outside, then poured a couple of pots worth of boiling water on it. Then I got out a good, sharp knife and manually took off all the bark and such on the wood that I could, waited a few days, and set it in my tank. It's been fine for the last few months. This of course dosen't say that yours is as perfectly clean to start off with as mine happened to be, but IMO, this would work, and work well. All it took was about two hours (mainly from de-barking). Oh, I figure I ought to say that I got the driftwood straight from a lake... I forgot to say that in the beginning of the post

 

[sussexgirl]

I did some searching on other sites and found the following:
Both use a trash can lined with a large plastic bag.


To treat uncured Driftwood for use in an Aquarium you should sterilize it by soaking it in a mixture of a quarter cup of chlorox per gallon of water. After such a treatment it will need to be held in a container of fresh untreated water for a period of at least a week, with the water being changed completely daily. Then soak in plain water for a week changing water daily to remove any bleach remaining.

and
Use i cup aquarium salt per every 10 gallons water. Soak it for a week changing water daily and adding salt. Dry the wood out in the sun for a week or so then Soak again for a week changing water daily to make sure all salt is removed.
Remember to clean wood of any loose bits and sand down any edges that are sharp and may hurt the fish.

These are time consuming methods and I don't know how effective they are.

My goodness what an ordeal! I'd just save your money and go buy the expensive driftwood Mako Man!!!

 

[Bignose]

Oak is high in "Tannin" and not sappy like the evergreens. Whether it's wet or dry "now" when it's in the tank it will release. I always thought about any wood going in to the tank as "tea bags" some will brew up strong and others will do very little.

That log you found better be one immpressive-est thing to even bother with the ordeal you have ahead of you (if you so choose to place it). Like dude mentioned soft wood (rot and such) adds character. Personally I'd get a large barrel full of water and just weigh it down then forget it. Change the water every now and then. I'd recon after a year (depending on the size) it'll be good to go. You might be able to speed this up a bit by hollowing it out .

Not that tannins are a bad thing, and in fact they can do severaql useful things. Look at this post I wrote just the other day ( http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=161323 )

"Now, exactly why are you wanting to get rid of the tannins? The color may be unappealing, though for many fish it is much more like their natural waters, it may even be a spawning trigger for some species. Not only that, but tannins perform some other really great duties in an aquarium; most importantly for the fish, tannins detoxify heavy metals by binding the metals up. Heavy metal poisoning is often overlooked as the concentrations of some metals in tap water that is safe for humans, can be very unsafe for fish. Copper is a great example, by the time the average person can taste copper in their water, it is still at a safe level for humans, but is over 1000 times the toxic threshold for the average fish.

Not only do tannins bind up the heavy metals, but in that bound up state, plants can uptake the heavy metals much more easily. In this way, the plants have a much lesser chance of lacking their micronutrients. So, if you have live plants in your tank, the tannins help them too."

 

[xJake]

I'd just save some money and buy some driftwood or bogwood. It sounds like way too much work for the money you're saving. Ebay has a great selection many less than $10.