Could I find a piece of drift wood in a local lake/river/or one of the Great lakes, and put it in my aquarium? And if so what exactly makes a piece of wood to be considered drift wood? And is there any sterilizing precautions I should take before adding it to my tank.
Can you use drift wood you find yourself
- Thread starter Lund
- Start date
To disinfect you can boil it.or if its too big soak in bleach1 cup/10g water then brine solution,scrub it really good first.
lol. yes you can, just boil it. nothing will live at 100 degrees so, you'll have killed everything. if you want to be super thorough you can take all the bark off if its a branch. You could scrub it down after too, and if you want bleach it, but i never like to bleach wood.
Lund;671780; said:
It's technically considered drift wood if it was been floating in water for almost any period of time
, but what you want is something off the bottom of a cold water (deep) lake if possible. this way it is already waterlogged. If it doesn't have anything growing on it just a general cleaning (with light bleach if you have any concerns, just rinse/soak to dechlor it).Good luck, finding your own driftwood makes the tank that much more special...
What part of Michigan are you in?
ewurm;671950; said:
ewurm, your wisdom has befuddled us again
!davo;671980; said:
Just a side note, alot of bacteria live at more than 100*F, boiling water (212*F) kills 80+% of harmful aquatic bacteria, bleach gets another 19% and if your fussy UV gets the rest.
Dr Joe
.
Howdy,
Native driftwood is great. I only have self-harvested wood in my tank.
- the river has to be clean, no industry along the shores!
- the wood has to be well weathered, washed out to the fiber. If it has bark, it's too young. It needs to look like it's spent years and years in the water
- only use wood from flowing bodies of water, never from stagnant areas.
- do not use wood that was covered with mud, it must be located in the stream
- Stay away from conifers. Look at the vegetation along the stream and upstream closely!
When I harvest driftwood, I first hose it down with a high-pressure cleaner (carwash). Then, I soak it in saturated salt solution (in the bath tub) for three days (daily fresh). That disinfects it all the way. Then I soak it for a couple of days in daily fresh water to de-salt it.
And off it goes into my tank. Generally, you have to weigh it down. I tie it to a rock with fishing line.
Self-harvested wood is a lot of fun. I got mine from a canoeing trip
HarleyK
Native driftwood is great. I only have self-harvested wood in my tank.
- the river has to be clean, no industry along the shores!
- the wood has to be well weathered, washed out to the fiber. If it has bark, it's too young. It needs to look like it's spent years and years in the water
- only use wood from flowing bodies of water, never from stagnant areas.
- do not use wood that was covered with mud, it must be located in the stream
- Stay away from conifers. Look at the vegetation along the stream and upstream closely!
When I harvest driftwood, I first hose it down with a high-pressure cleaner (carwash). Then, I soak it in saturated salt solution (in the bath tub) for three days (daily fresh). That disinfects it all the way. Then I soak it for a couple of days in daily fresh water to de-salt it.
And off it goes into my tank. Generally, you have to weigh it down. I tie it to a rock with fishing line.
Self-harvested wood is a lot of fun. I got mine from a canoeing trip
HarleyK
Dr Joe;672258; said:
Davo lives in the UK. His 100 degrees is in Celcius
I always think it's pretty cool how their water boils at almost half the temp of what ours boils at.
Another thing to keep in mind when harvesting your own driftwood is to keep it wet. I have a small peice that I found in several feet of water. It was on the bottom on some rocks with nothing holding it down. It was allowed to dry out until I got home (collected during month long vacation). It has been floating in one of my tanks since the middle of August and is showing no signs of sinking (it is not weighted down).
Dr Joe;672258; said:
He's from the UK where they use Celcius so 100 degrees will be fine to kill off anything that would detrimental to our fish's health. (if you use the Kelvin scale, 373 will take care of them) Not much can handle anything above that. Bleach works very well to take out anything else and get the gunk off of the wood. post some pics