Driftwood for pleco

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
fishnthings said:
how in the hell do you treat wood... and can you do it too any piece of wood?
Click to expand...

Depends what you want to treat it for. The best thing to do is if it is small boil it in a pan. If it is to big for a pan, start by telling anyone that lives in the house not to use any hot water from the tap. Now go out to the water heater and crank it up, if you do not know how to properly do this DON'T, put the wood in the bath tub and fill it with only hot water turned on. Be careful depending on how high you turned it you may get some very hot steam come up from the wood. Fill until all the wood if submerged, if possible, or floating; if there is wood that is to tall, just flip it every ten minutes or so. Leave the wood like this for about an hour. Empty the tub, and repeat once or twice more. After all this is done, return the water heater back to its original setting. Now not all do this, but I do. Fill a tub, bucket, clean trash can, or large rubbermaid with the wood, and water from the an aquarium, or straight from the tap, doesn't need to be warm, but make sure to fill the container enough so that the wood is completely submerged. Put a declorinator in the water, even if you used aquarium water, as some of the wood may have absorbed alot of chlorine from your tub treatment. Let the wood sit this way overnight or at least 3 hours. After this the wood is ready to be placed into the tank.
 
i soaked mine for about 5-7 days and changed the water a couple of times (just to remover the tanning) and then, yea i boiled mine to get rid of any unwanted organisms. That tank is in takashis dining room, its amazing. Plus, the large amounts plecos crap, your bound to miss some while cleaning, and this can help the plants growth (ive found)
 
Yeah, plants need nitrogen to grow. Which pleco's are more than able to fulfill this requirement.
 
i would like to add real plants to my Afican cichlid tank. Someday I will find out which plants can live with cichlids.

But as for as wood, I used found drift wood from a sandy lake that seemed to have kept plant growth on the wood to a minimum. There was not too much wire brushing needed. I let it dry out and "bake" in the sun. Most if the pieces I use are too large for an oven. It only took a couple of weeks for the wood to become water loged again, where it did not need to have a rock on it to keep it submerged.

I did have a problem once. One piece of drift wood that I bought leaked tanins (spelling?) in the water. looked bad, but not bad for the fish. It gave the tank a natural, lake water look, but it was too much for my taste.
 
fish head )'> said:
i would like to add real plants to my Afican cichlid tank. Someday I will find out which plants can live with cichlids.

But as for as wood, I used found drift wood from a sandy lake that seemed to have kept plant growth on the wood to a minimum. There was not too much wire brushing needed. I let it dry out and "bake" in the sun. Most if the pieces I use are too large for an oven. It only took a couple of weeks for the wood to become water loged again, where it did not need to have a rock on it to keep it submerged.

I did have a problem once. One piece of drift wood that I bought leaked tanins (spelling?) in the water. looked bad, but not bad for the fish. It gave the tank a natural, lake water look, but it was too much for my taste.
Click to expand...

The best way for tanins is to treat the wood in a hot bath, which also will remove most tag along organisms. Check out my post here: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20908. This is the way I treat for it.
 
This will also cut out the long floating time, if the wood isn't already water logged. If the log is water logged, and you dry it out it takes a long time to get it to sit back at the bottom of the tank.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom