Driftwood won't sink. Any ideas?

[serjuanca888]

I bought this gorgeous peice of driftwood. It is 24" long, 5 inches wide and 12" tall. I mounted it to a peice of slate and put it in my aquarium. I then covered the slate with 3 inches of gravel and about 10 pounds of river rocks. The wood still floats.

I really love this peice of wood and want to use it. Can you guys think of anything to weigh it down enough.

My dad wants to use lead? Maybe drill holes in the back and stuff it up. Does that sound doable?

or could i get a tile sized peice of lead, and use that like the slate tile?

Any ideas on where i can get lead?

[blitzen25bm]

have you boiled it yet? you might have to just soak it for a while. either mount it to a bigger piece of slate or put some rocks on the slate and it will become water logged after a while, it could take weeks though. -john

[JohnMemorialHS]

I had a driftwood that's probably about a quarter of the size of yours, and it took about 1 1/2 years and it still wasn't saturated with water, therefore, it still floated, so I took it out :D

[Bristlenose Chuck]

My suggestion would be to put another piece of slate on it. If you cant drill another piece, you could epoxy or silicone it to your current piece of slate.

[serjuanca888]

I think its gonna take about 50lbs of weight to make it sink. Thats why i want to go the lead route. I really love this peice of wood, thats why I am going to so much trouble.

[Dangerdoll]

I had the same problem a couple of months ago. First, I let the wood soak in a brand new garbage can for a few days (new because I needed something clean and large enough to hold the large chunk of wood as it was too large to boil), not sure if I went a whole week, hard to remember. When I put it in the tank, it would still torpedo up as if it hadn't soaked at all. I went and got 3 very large rocks from the lfs and placed one each on 3 corners of the slate. Each rock was over 6 inches tall and round, in a rocky kind of way. It wasn't the prettiest picture I had in mind, but it seemed to work for the time being. I just removed one of the rocks a couple of days ago and the wood is still down. I tried removing another rock but it's not ready for that yet....maybe in another couple months. At first I was skeptical about using the large rocks because I was sure they wouldn't hold it down because of the strength I thought it had, but they did....you might want to get larger rocks, they just may work. They may not be exactly what you had in mind as far as look-wise in your tank, but it may be something to put up with for a couple of months is all.

[carpguy]

Boiling can help speed the saturation process. When the air inside the wood becomes heated it will expand and be forced out of the wood. When the wood cools little vaccums will be created in those pores. If you leave the wood in the water it will pull water into those spaces (if you take it out of the water it will pull air back in).

I siliconed my driftwood to large slate tiles and after a month or two they started to come loose. They're sunk but they move around, which is not what I wanted. It may be a good way to sink the wood if you want that flexibility later.

Next time out I'm going to try epoxy and screws, but this is a very disruptive kind of thing (best for the initial setup, I don't know how practical it would be for an inhabited tank). I have a test tank where I epoxied some wood down and it seems to me like it'll come loose again. The wood gets a little soft as it saturates and it seems like its enough to break the seal under stress. Since I like thin branchy wood that sticks up like roots my wood gets banged around during maintenance -- this may not be a problem with bigger and flatter pieces.

The plan is to epoxy the wood into position and then screw through the bottom of the slate to fix it into place. This should do the trick, but it makes remodeling a little difficult. I went to the Home Depot and bought a few 12" square tiles and some eggcrate (lighting department, the plastic grids that go in flourescent light fixtures). You'd also want some epoxy, some stainless steel screws, and a masonry bit to drill the tiles. (BTW, I found if you glue, epoxy, silicone to the bottom of the ceramic tiles the rougher surface will give you a better grip).

By gluing first I can get everything positioned as I want it, which I think would be much more difficult drilling freehand. The screw heads sitting on the bottom glass and loaded up with everything in the tank could create pressure points, which could create cracks. Cracks are bad. So… cut the eggcrate to fit inside under the whole area involved (I'll do the entire bottom, you could do two tiles and enough eggcrate to fit under them). You can just snap the little pieces of plastic with a pair of needle nose pliers. Slate/wood assembly goes on top of that, gravel and rocks goes on top of that.

Or glue then screw the wood onto a tile and then glue (silicone or epoxy) another tile (or 2 or 3) to the bottom of that. More portable and less need for the eggcrate. You could give it a very substantial base this way, I'd think you could get at least as heavy as you'd be able to with lead.

Lead is poisonous for the fish too. If you decide to go that route I'd drill holes into the thickest parts of the wood, pour the lead in and seal the holes with silicone. But I wouldn't want to risk eventual leaching, so I wouldn't go that way.

Sorry that got so long, but I hope it helps…

[Fishsmurf]

I have had to speed read the above suggestions, so if it's already been mentioned forgive me......

But how about attaching some of the sucker cups used for hiding airlines to the bottom of the slate (or directly into the wood) and then suckering it to the botton of the tank. By the time you add the substrate round it no-one will notice the little sucker cups..... HTH......

[superstein61]

Boiling it - or alternatively if its too big to do so, put it in a big clean container or garbage can, temporarily weight it down, and cover with the hottest water you can. Leave it sit for at least a few weeks - changing the water on occassion

It still may float after this, but when putting in your tank, if you cover the slate with gravel and a nice rock, that should hold it further until it becomes fully waterlogged

[serjuanca888]

Thanks for the replies. I have already soaked it for two weeks in my bathtub. ( i took it out everyday for 10 minutes while i showered). I did screw it to a peice of slate. I then covered it with rocks. It still floated and the slate broke off where the rocks were due to the extreme bouyancy of the wood. Should I give up and buy some other driftwood? I really dont want to.

[serjuanca888]

My problem is the bouyancy of the wood breaks the slate. I have another idea:

1)Go out spend $10 on a marble tile (so it won't break)
2)get some longer screws
3)silicone the tile to the bottom of the tank.
4)then if required put rocks around it to hold it down.


My questions:
Do you think the silicone would be strong enough to hold it down. Is there a better substance to use (ie epoxy, etc.)
Can you drill through marble with a masonary bit?

Not to mention, do you think my above idea will work?

[GhoriG]

If all else fails, get a sheet of plexiglass from Homedepot,
the biggest size you can fit into the tank. Screw it onto
the peice of wood and cover with gravel. The idea is to
get as much gravel holding it down as possible - so the
larger the plexiglass sheet - the better. Just make sure you
can get it into the tank. You can also use some large rocks
around the tank as decoration, which will add additional
weight on the sheet to help keep the wood down.

[Matak]

If you decide to go the screwed into something heavy route, spend the extra 25 cents and get the stainless screws. No chance of heavy metals etc. leaching into the tank.

[serjuanca888]

plexi-glass is kindof expensive. The idea of having a large peice of something on the bottom is a good idea tho.

[KateA.]

My Dad had a piece of driftwood in his tank for YEARS and it never became fully water logged. As soon as you pulled the gravel away from it, it would float up!

[serjuanca888]

Originally posted by serjuanca888
plexi-glass is kindof expensive. The idea of having a large peice of something on the bottom is a good idea tho.

And.... :confused:

[pinballqueen]

You might, as an alternative, try this:

Screw a wide piece of slate tile onto the bottom, say, at least 18" square. then, between the wood and the edges of the tile, place another tile like this, and screw it together.

----- -----
--------

So that you have a larger surface area to place heavy objects on.

Keep adding as many tiles as you can until you can manage to hold down the driftwood. Just a suggestion...

[superstein61]

Originally posted by serjuanca888
plexi-glass is kindof expensive. The idea of having a large peice of something on the bottom is a good idea tho.

Go to your local Home Depot and get a piece of LEXAN roughly the size you need. Then you can cut it to size with a power saw. And attach that to the driftwood

LEXAN is very sturdy and relatively inexpensive - it will give you more of the surface area you need so you can cover it with gravel, etc in the tank.

[Matak]

If you decide to go the screwed into something heavy route, spend the extra 25 cents and get the stainless screws. No chance of heavy metals etc. leaching into the tank.

[GEV83]

I read most of the post and the plexiglass idea would probably be your best bet. Is your tank already inhabited if not just put the heater full blast and wait then let the water cool. If you have fish it wont work. Another thing you could do if you dont have fish is to glue it to the bottom of the tank with alot of silicone (might have to call pamela anderson for the amount you might need) wait til it fully dries put ll the rock on top of it and keep your fingers crossed. Im glad I never had this problem my driftwood sonk like a rock when I put it in.