What About Driftwood?

ZorroNet

ZorroNet

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Sep 21, 2013
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Paxton, FL
flfarmersmarket.com
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Dave
I could use some shared knowledge about driftwood. I honestly don't have a clue what will work and what will cause problems, so I'd like some experienced plant/fish keeping aquarists to weigh in on the topic and clue us (or at least me) in on the do's and don'ts of driftwood.

I'm cheap, so I'd love to just go and find some or cut some green wood and make it work, but I have a feeling it doesn't quite work that way. I have easy access to crape myrtles which in the large sense look like I would like the piece(s) to look in my 40 gal tall octagon tank. I'm thinking branchy , but probably upside down like roots of a mangrove. Is it ok to use green wood? Can you prep it in a way that's safe for plants and fish? Must it truly be driftwood from a river, lake, or ocean? Please give me your thoughts on the matter. I would really appreciate some help in the right direction!

Thanks in advance!
Dave
 
Dont use softwoods. I guess they decompose much faster than hard woods. Boiling wood is a good idea to get the tannis out and to kill anything that could become an issue( parasites). As for the green wood i was informed not to use it. It should already be dead. I usually find hard wood branches that are dead, cut em to size, do the best i can with boiled water, and scrub the heck out of it with a brush or some type of rough material to clean then use the hose to wash it. Oh, i also try to get rid of any and all the bark i can. Hopefully more people will chime in with their own experiences and their way of adding collected driftwood to their tanks.

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Kyle's on the money. Green wood will leach sap into the water which can, at best, cloudy up the water. Depending on stocking, it could potentially also be harmful. Bark is bad. Well dried hardwoods are generally safe.
 
you can pretty much use most wood. soft or hard. while softwood has a reputation for decaying faster.. that is not always the case.. it largely depends on which species you find.

that said...it's best to find aged wood.. I find mine in streams/rivers in the mountains. once it ages and discolors after being water logged most woods are hard to identify. so you'd be hard pressed to be able to determine which wood you have.
you could crosscut it and look for grain structure and growth rings but again many 'softwood' are fine for aquariums.. think cypress and cedar here...
I usually stay away from pine(white pine and yellow pine) but have used dougfir and spruce in tanks with no issues as well as cypress and cedar.
 
Dave, you are in Florida, Cypress and swamp cedar are two good local woods, and Australian swamp pine also.
Storms often topple trees leaving nice root exposed.
 
plantbrain said:
Dave, you are in Florida, Cypress and swamp cedar are two good local woods, and Australian swamp pine also.
Storms often topple trees leaving nice root exposed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was a little apprehensive about swamp woods just because of possible parasites, but I guess I could boil the heck out of it. Next day off I get, I might just go swamp diggin'! Gators and snakes also make me a little apprehensive about swamps haha
 
Well lucky me... My mother-in-law did some major pruning of her huge crape myrtles. I admit, I was thinking about sneaking in a midnight pruning if she didn't, haha!

I snagged a few branches that I liked the shape of and hung them out to dry in the sun for a few weeks. After some scrubbing with industrial pot scrubbers to remove loose bark and fungus/lichens, I constructed a tree for my tall hexagon tank. I had a round ceramic coaster that I drilled holes into and some stainless steel screws to secure the branches to it. I banded the branches together with zip ties temporarily to hold the shape I wanted and pre-drilled the wood to avoid splitting it. Then I stuck it in the tank (rearranging the plants a bit) and made little tufts of java moss to place in the tree. I've been growing out the moss for a while with this project in mind.

The fish, snails, and I love it so far... I'll report back on how it wears in as time marches on!

Photo-Oct-20-10-36-24-AM.jpg
45 Gal Hexagon Tank (dirty but recently re-vamped)

Photo-Oct-20-10-36-24-AM.jpg
 
It looks great!
 
Quick update...the crape myrtle is doing fine. The water seems unaffected and I didn't get the slimy white bacteria I expected. However, one of the two branches I used to make my tree was still really green because it's occasionally sprouting leaves! I just pinch them off lol


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