Smelly Driftwood

Jamie

Jamie

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Jul 27, 2003
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Hi all, I was wondering if anyone new of a safe way to seal driftwood. I purchased some Malaysian Driftwood awhile back and found it to be the source of an unpleasant odor in my tank. Seems as if it is decomposing. Since I just moved and have the tank broken down I figured now would be a good time to address the situation. The wood sinks like a rock so I don't need it to be water-logged. I was thinking about sealing it with an epoxy/laquer type substance to prevent the possible decomposition and bad smell. Does anyone know of a good sealant that would be safe for aquarium water once cured? I almost bought some clear finiish from the hardware store today but figured I should ask before I make a mistake.
 
I wouldn't seal it, what I did in the same situation was take out the driftwood and out it in a bucket of water and scrape off all the soft decomposed wood. That should fix it up for a few more months, and will look nicer than sealing it. HTH
 
Originally posted by Jamie
Hi all, I was wondering if anyone new of a safe way to seal driftwood. ....
Click to expand...
NO. Never heard of that. As mentioned, you need to make sure none of it is decomposing/rotting. "Sealing" would just make it worse in my opinion... Also, what product could be used to seal it?

Can you get another piece of driftwood?
 
Don't know exactly what the smell is, could be a number of things, like some critter(s) decomposing deep inside.

First step would be to boil the heck outta it. Hopefully this will clear up whatever's causing the smell.

I've never found wood rotting to smell bad, or any vegetable matter, so I doubt that it's the wood itself. However, you could take some steel wool to it and scrub off any soft spots.

I don't think that sealing it is a good idea. Especially if you have fish that like to nibble or rasp driftwood or plants that you're going to want to attach to the wood. In either case, you'd lose your seal and it wouldn't solve the problem.
 
I have never seen any thing make a smell like something rotton in my tanks. Even when I had had fish die on me, while on vacation in the past..
 
Same thing happened to me with a large piece of mopani I bought. I first boiled it for about 10 minutes and have been soaking it in a bucket since. The bucket stinks like rotten eggs after a while and I have to change the water frequently.

I have bought a wire brush that I'm going to scrape the wood with and maybe try boiling more. Keep us updated on anything you find that helps.
 
If it stinks like rotten eggs then it stands to reason that there is some sulphur in that wood. Perhaps where it was grown there was a lots of sulphur in the ground water and it will just take some time to get it out.
 
I did the same thing once. Found a nice piece of wood, scraped it(dremel tool, picks etc..), cleaned it, boiled it. It was nice! After about 5 months it started to stink and upon further inspection I noticed there were other spots rotting. This was water-logged wood from a local swamp, not malaysian.

Anyway, wood is a renuable resource...junk it and get another piece would be my advice.
 
if you really want to seal it, use polyurithane- basically liquid plastic that you can cover the wood in, the wood will soak it up and the plastic will harden, makeing the wood last practically forever- just do this process outside of the tank!

:thud: oops! did not see how old this was!
 
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