Sinking Driftwood

[dsaavedra]

okay so a while ago i got a really cool looking piece of driftwood. its about 4 feet long. i knew it would just look awesome in my tank.

so i took it and i submerged it in a pond, and its been submerged for over a month. today i went to go retrieve it, and the darn thing still floats!

i took it back home to see how it would look in my tank and to see how it would fit. it fits nicely and i really like how it looks, and my fish like it too.

right now its just sitting in my tank w/ 50% of the water in there, my fish are playing under it.

soooooooooooo, how should i go about getting it to sink now that its in my tank? tie rocks to it or what?

 

[jtalley]

I have a similar piece that I zipped tied some eggcrate too and piled rocks on that to weight it down.

 

[dsaavedra]

how long do you think it will take for it to waterlog?

i'm hoping any weights will be temporary.

i was also thinking about taking a dowel rod and propping it against the crossbar in the top of my tank and using it to keep the wood pressed down to the bottom.

 

[jtalley]

A large piece can have a lot of buoyancy, so I don't know about a dowel pin. I have had this piece submerged for several months and still it floats, so I just tried to make it look natural.

 

[unvmyplecos]

if you have gravel or rock formations you can teraform the rocks around the drift wood onto the ends and put plants in front of it to hide it. that way it looks non-chalant (Sp) and it still stays down, and you can keep it there.... for ETERNITY (if you want to of course)

 

[dsaavedra]

the dowel rod to the ceiling is working quite nicely, its just a bit ugly.

maybe if i find some rocks heavy enough to hold this mofo down i'll use them. it has a ton of buoyancy.

 

[abarilot]

Just give it time. Had a couple of smaller pieces that took over 2 months to sink. Obviously the dowel its ideal but it looks fin to me.

 

[basenjib123]

I had a piece about that size...after a year, it still floated! If I recall it took about 2 years to stay completely submerged without weights and dowels.

 

[dsaavedra]

i had a little piece that came from the same batch of driftwood that i boiled for many hours and let it soak in the pot of warm water for over 24hrs and it sank as soon as i put it in my 5 gallon. it seems heat is important in waterlogging wood.

 

[basenjib123]

Nice little tip to know for future floaters!