Boiling wood...

[Aquascaper]

did you get the big piece from a fish store or did you pick it off the ground somewhere?

Mixture of both Some from the lake district and some from the LFS. The biggest piece was from my LFS though (and i got it free - should have been £45 )

 

[cutecotton]

i heard this method also works with just regular wood that you pick off a forest or something?

i heard if you take a branch of wood, and soak/boil it in water for a long time and then bake it for a few hours it'll essentially be the same as driftwood?

i'm going to give that a try

CC don't use green wood, the sugars and starches will kill all you fish as it brakes down in the tank. The wood from forests etc must be dead and dryed out, however this will need to be soaked for around a month so it becomes water-logged and will sink.

oo but i was told that it was possible to pick wood say off a forest floor, boil it or soak it for a whiel adn then bake it, and that'll get rid of everything to prevent it from rotting?

 

[noelberg]

I picked up some nice wood from the beach... I have washed it a few times but I'm still not sure if I can put it in the aqaurium yet.

I didn't boil the wood though... Should I try hot water with melafix?

...sorry for intruding on this post but I don't want to start a new topic

If it's from the beach, then salt could be an issue unless you have fish that love salt (livebearers, brackish, etc.).

Sinking is next - we often soak wood to let it sink. Sometimes one has to weigh it down by screwing on a shale slab to the bottom or using other weights. Sometimes we get lucky and a piece sinks from the get-go.

The final issue is the stuff inside of and on the outside of the wood. Of course there can be bacteria on the wood - boiling/melafix/oven-trick kills the nasty stuff. But there are also tannins and other chemicals inside the wood that can make the water more acidic or change its color. I enjoy the beneficial chemicals, but as danio said, some wood can have dangerous chemicals, so green wood and certain evergreens can be deadly to your fish.

HTH