Wood From A Tree

[coldcazzie]

A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to use some wood from his cherry tree in my fish tank.

Would it be safe to put it in? I said I thought it wouldn't safe to just chop it off and dump it in, but would there be a way of making it suitable?

 

[KittyKat]

I use oak wood: I stripped off the bark, dry it well, scrub (to get any crap off which might have gotten on while the wood was drying), then use as normal bogwood. I still have pieces in my aquariums which I put in 8-10 years ago.. of course, the plecos do tend to eat it a bit.

The point to take care of is that mainly only hard wood is recommended as soft wood tends to rot or fall apart. I'm not sure which category cherry falls into, but I am sure it won't be too difficult to find out..

 

[coldcazzie]

Well according to this list here it is a hard wood.

Of course, the other key thing is whether or not my friend has correctly identified his tree as a cherry! lol

 

[KittyKat]

Oh, and check that they don't use pesticides, of course! Cherry is not difficult to identify.. it would be surprising if they got it wrong!

 

[Mikaila31]

It should be dead wood, green wood will rot quickly and I only suggest it if you have wood eating plecos. I have used lots of oak, pine, ivy wood in my tanks without a problem. I don't bother with removing bark. My tanks are also very heavily planted and can counter the effects of slowly decaying wood.

 

[coldcazzie]

Cool. I will check with him and hopefully I can get a few bits