Using Found Wood

[zoogy]

I was searching old posts in this forum and found one from Dec 2010 that said you could use found wood in your tank instead of buying really expensive lfs wood. One guy even said live wood is okay.... really??? Can you seriously just take branches from outside, scrape the bark off and soak it for a couple of weeks?

Oh, and my original question was how do you boil long gangly pcs of driftwood. Too big for a pot on the stove so I put it in a large plastic bin and pour hot water over it to soak. I change the water every day and put a lid on the container so it kind of steeps in there. Will that do the trick?

 

[Skins]

I was searching old posts in this forum and found one from Dec 2010 that said you could use found wood in your tank instead of buying really expensive lfs wood. One guy even said live wood is okay.... really??? Can you seriously just take branches from outside, scrape the bark off and soak it for a couple of weeks?

Oh, and my original question was how do you boil long gangly pcs of driftwood. Too big for a pot on the stove so I put it in a large plastic bin and pour hot water over it to soak. I change the water every day and put a lid on the container so it kind of steeps in there. Will that do the trick?

I can't advise you on using branches from your garden trees, as for soaking your driftwood/bogwood i did the same as you are for about a week and for larger pieces i put them in the bath and soak them for a little longer than a week.

Keith.

 

[Aqua Tom]

It has to be a hardwood like oak. I would make sure it was dead first. Then soak the hell out of it (a waterbut is fine for big bits). Then debark it. then soak the hell out of it some more. then give it a good scrub with a stiff brush, then soak the hell out of it a bit more.






Or just buy a bit.

 

[dirtydogg]

I have used found wood before. The wood I chose was driftwood that I pulled from our local lake. I followed a regiment close to what Aqua Tom suggested.

• Soak the wood
• Boil the wood(or soak it in boiling water)
• Soak the wood longer
• Clean the wood with a wire brush
• Soak the wood
• Boil the wood(or soak the wood in boiling water)
• Soak the wood longer

After a few short weeks I introduced it to my tank without any problems.

 

[zoogy]

Great! Thanks to all for the advice.

 

[OldMan47]

If you have firm hard wood to work with, clean it well and use it. Soaking the wood is an attempt to get water to soak into the wood structure and to remove some of the tannins. Unfortunately, you do not have a lifetime to soak it to remove all of the tannins and wood that does not start out dense rarely gains enough water to sink by itself. Instead, the most common way to sink a piece of hard dense wood is to attach it to a piece of slate. I use a stainless steel screw to do that. Once the slate is attached, it can easily be hidden under the substrate. By cutting the right angle on the wood, the slate also lets you position the wood any way that suits you.

 

[waterdrop]

That reminds me I need to move my soaking bogwood off the patio before the next hard freeze (although luckily I don't think the ice broke the plastic box last time ) It's about to get to year two of soaking, lol.