DIY Driftwood

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Wait, you have a concrete canoe? Pics of this and the wood.
 
moneyman6891;2616955; said:
Wait, you have a concrete canoe? Pics of this and the wood.

I second wanting pics of the concrete canoe!!

but back to topic, was talking to a friend the other day about driftwood, and how it clouds tanks. He said he took his outside and power washed it down, then cleaned with bleach, then soaked in water for a few days, along with chlorine detox.

anyways I seen it in his crystal clear tank, must have worked.....
 
Alright, I'll throw up some pics of the canoe tomorrow. It is made of concrete. We make one every year in ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) and we race them against other schools every year. This link has pictures of our last paddling practice with a canoe made about 2 or 3 years ago (I think). Concrete does float....cement does not. The aggregate makes the difference. Perlite (the stuff you find in the gardening center at Lowe's or Home Depot) is a common lighter-than-water aggregate. As long as the concrete is less than 62.4 lb/cubic foot, it floats! http://asce.eng.usf.edu/Web Gallery/2008-2009/ASCEConcreteCanoeMeetingDecember272008/index.html
 
My driftwood is soaking in a large garbage can with some bleach. I'm going to leave it in there for a couple days. After the bleachy soak I plan on scrubbing it with a heavy brush of sorts. Then I'll soak it in the dechlorinator. I'll do some math on the right amount of dechlorinator needed for my mixture and post it. That should help keep everyone from wasting that expensive AmQuel! O yea, I'll post pics of the driftwood after I get it cleaned up. As for the concrete canoe, all of our pics can be found here :http://asce.eng.usf.edu/Web Gallery/index.htm. Just look on the concrete canoe links. There are pics from our floating practices with an old canoe and photos of our progress on this year's canoe.
 
Alright folks, I've done a little math and come to a conclusion about dechlorinating driftwood: Water changes are the key. Even if you use a measured amount for cleaning up your driftwood and don't do subsequent water changes to lower the amount of chlorine within the driftwood, you're wasting your money. A little bleach (even at 5.7% available chlorine) boosts the concentration of Cl through the roof; it could take more than (5) 16 oz. bottles of AmQuel to counter the Cl present (AmQuel handles around 2.1 ppm Cl). Two excellent methods I recommend for cleaning up the driftwood to get the Cl out: 1) Direct sunlight, 2) Water changes followed by dechlorinator.

Direct sunlight will cause the bleach to leave the wood. I'm not sure on the chemistry behind this reaction but it will help. NOTE: THIS IS NOT ENOUGH TO COMPLETELY ELIMINATE CHLORINE IN THE WOOD. IT WILL REDUCE IT!

Water changes will draw the chlorine out. Varying concentrations of Cl within the wood compared to the water surrounding it will cause the Cl to leech back out of the wood (It will go faster at first and slow as the concentrations within the wood decrease compared to the surrounding water). I would recommend doing at least 5 of these water changes over a weeks time with large amounts of water compared to the size of the wood (My driftwood is about the size of a 20" computer monitor, I'm using 10 gal. of water per change). Once these water changes have been done, move on to dechlorinator. Don't be stingy with the stuff. You will have lowered the concentration considerably from the cleansing but you don't want to kill your fish. I plan on doing around 5X - 6X the recommended dose for 10 gal. of tap water at least twice. Don't forget some stuff may be temperature dependent. The warmer the water you put it in, the better off you'll be.

This is my method for cleaning this up. If you feel uncertain about anything, know a better way to get this done, or see any error in my suggestions, post it and let me know!
 
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