How long does driftwood last?

[H]-[H]

How long does driftwood last? Will it rot?

 

[Toby_H]

cheap 'driftwood' will slowly decompose at the surface and will continuously flake off (creating debris in the tank)... but I have several pieces that are several years old and do not seem any smaller than they used to be...

higher grade driftwood will not do this and will stay essentially unchanged over many years...

 

[H]-[H]

How to differentiate high and low grade driftwood?

 

[V1xIII]

I'm no expert, but generally the harder and heavier it is the better.

 

[H]-[H]

When I first bought mine, it was pretty hard & heavy..

 

[Toby_H]

Hard woods make better driftwood... so if you can identify the type of wood it is that would help a ton. Otherwise use the old fingernail trick (poke your fingernail into the wood, hold your tongue securely between your top lip and front tooth and make your best guess to the hardness of the wood).

After the wood has been submerged for a few months higher grade wood will not flake off creating debris in the tank (but by this time you've already bought the wood...)

It's also silly to believe that driftwood from a particular country is good/bad wood, as I would guess that most if not all countries have more than one kind of tree. Both my best and my worst pieces of driftwood were bought as "Malaysian".

 

[fishyjoe26]

just my opinion but malaysian is the best driftwood to use. i have that type of driftwood in my 225 for around 2 years and before that it was in my 240 for 4 years and is still holding up heavy and strong.

 

[Allan01230]

Sooner or later every type of wood will decompose. Plecos help this process even more. As was said seems the Malaysian driftwood holds up the longest. It does stain the water tea-color for awhile though.