sinking driftwood...

saray2004

saray2004

undercover genius
Feb 19, 2005
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southern IL/ central MS
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:help: Well I went and found myself a great looking piece of driftwood over the weekend. It's about 3/4 the length of my 75 and the highest point is about 2/3 up the tank. It's just smashing! Anyways I have scrubbed it until my arm almost fell off and now I was wondering what the best way to sink it would be. The majority of it is in a 55 gallon trashcan right now but some of it is still sticking up. How long do you think it will take before it's heavy enough to stay down? :dive: Is there any way to help the bogging process along???
 
Boiling helps but it sounds kinda big. On a different note I would pour boiling water over it to kill as much bacteria as possible.
 
I had a peice that was too big to boil, about 3ft long and 1ft tall.
I soaked it in a garbage can, then a wheelbarrow for a total of around a month. Sank immediately once I put it in the tank. It was oak.
 
I always use nylon stips to tie my pieces of wood to a piece of thick glass.

Glass and nylon are inert, and being glass heavy will help to sink the piece. If after that, it still floats, you can use the piece of glass as a support for some rocks that will help it stay down.

My methond... works always.
 
well with my wood it was too big to boil, so i soaked it in bleach for 2 days, and then in water for a month, changing the water every few days. STILL wouldnt sink.SO i siliconed rocks to the bottom and kerplunk. still leaked air for over a month after that.
 
Most fish stores sell these metal strips to attach to the bases of live plants to keep them down. I bought some from a LFS and just attached them to the bottom of a piece of driftwood and it sunk down to the bottom. Another option is to attach it to a piece of slate with silicone put it in your tank. The slate will add a lot of weight to the driftwood, but if you don't like the look of it you can bury the slate underneath the gravel in your tank to keep it hidden.
 
thanks for the ideas! My friend has an extra horse trough in their barn's office and I think we're going to try the tie-down method for a while and see if that helps. I think I would need 30 or 40 pounds worth of slate to keep this piece completely submerged... and I wouldn't want to risk it coming lose and flying out of the water and breaking my light strips. So I take it there isn't any way to speed the process up? I guess patience really is a virtue when it comes to plunking logs... :dance2:
 
saray2004 said:
I guess patience really is a virtue when it comes to plunking logs... :dance2:
Click to expand...


no kidden! i am sinking about 10 pieces in 4 differnt buckets right now, all at differnt stages and they are a month in. the smaller pieces are within weeks of being tank ready, the water is clearer every day! but seriously, this takes forever! i do daily/every-other-day water changes, and scub them "if i'm bored" .......
 
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