Driftwood

[electric yellow]

Hi

I bought a large peice of driftwood today for one of my 4ft tanks and it is bone dry (the wood that is) Im wondering how do I get the wood to sink.

Ive had it soaking in aquarium water in the sink for the past 8hours and its still floating. All though it feels slightly heavier when i put it in the tank it still floats.

Im also wondering as to whether it will make the water dirty and discoloured? It seems to be making the water its soaking in quite a gross colour. Should I soak it for a few days? I did rinse it before I put it in the sink of water. All the driftwood at the lfs was bone dry. They had hardly any.

 

[Esfa]

tie some rocks to it.

the "dirty colour" is just tannis. completely harmless - infact the fish like it.

you can soak it for a few weeks to get rid of this, if you really want.

 

[gaz gun man]

nevermind me

 

[minxfishy]

Ive always soaked bogwood in boiling hot water for a week, just kept changing the water, then put it in the dishwasher for a final boil wash (without powder of course) and mine always sunk and never leeched tannins.

Its not necessary of course, but thats always worked for me.

Or like esfa says, tie rocks to it

 

[Dan81192]

boil the wood before if you do not like the brown tinting.

Dann

 

[Hallett]

I just washed mine under a tap like it says on the tag and put it in..No problems guess I got lucky, swish.

 

[SOLEXIS]

A good tip:
if you have a dish washer, put the wood in it without chemical. The result is brilliant!
Then, use some rock to maintain the drigt wood on the ground.
The tannin is harmless, use some active carbon in your filter for a week.

 

[electric yellow]

A good tip:
if you have a dish washer, put the wood in it without chemical. The result is brilliant!
Then, use some rock to maintain the drigt wood on the ground.
The tannin is harmless, use some active carbon in your filter for a week.

Thanks i will soak it till my dishwashers empty the put it through a couple of wash cycles. I have some carbon pouches in the cupboard I can put into the filter for a week. Might give it a quick boil today. I dont mind the brown wood but if its going to continuall make the water brown i might put it through the works first.

 

[waterdrop]

Make sure the diswasher doesn't automatically inject the stuff to keep spots off glassware...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[electric yellow]

^^^

Good point that. Im pretty sure we ran out of rinse aid a while ago...but I will double check.

 

[shelaghfishface]

GEE WIZZ is there anything you people DONT find a use for... wood in the dishwasher indeed good idea tho

 

[electric yellow]

So i put it in the tank...it still floats. I boiled it for a few hours and also put it in the dishwasher...

Maybe the thing is just so dam bone dry it needs to soak for ages. I have it soaking in a bucket covered in foil. SO maybe after a week it will sink?

I did tied rocks to it but it still floated slightly off the bottom and the cotton string looked crap tied to rocks...

Any other suggestions??

 

[Miss Wiggle]

there's a couple of different sorts of wood we use in fishkeeping and they all have a slight varience in what they'll do. I've just bought some gnraly twisty wood and it's floating in the tank at the moment, will just leave it there until it sinks in a few days time.

basically the wood is porous so it's got loads of little holes all through it, the water needs to soak through the wood, get into all these holes and fill them up before the wood will sink. That can take time, how long depends on the individual piece of wood.

tannine's won't leech out forever, again it depends on the piece of wood, we just stick some in a bucket of water, pour the water away and add new every day until teh water stays clear. But if you've got big tanks and therefore big bits of wood sometimes you just have to deal with it, we've had some wood that the only place to soak it would have been the bath

 

[electric yellow]

^^^

Thanks for that...i was going to just leave it in the tank but didnt want it to come crashing down and crack the tank or squish the fishies when it was soaked fully. Its about 30cms long and twisty sitting in a bucket soaking on the bench (8ltr bucket. Covered. Hpoing that will soak it up. I have a rock wedged into the bucket to weight it down.