Making wood safe for my tank

[rmorse]

Hey guys,

I am currently at Ocean City, Maryland. I found a EXTREMELY nice piece of wood, and would love to put it in my fish tank as a show piece. However, if you guys say it can't go in a fish tank, I can always put it in my beardie cage.

Anyway, about the piece. How do I determine if it is safe to go in my tank? I found it on the Bay side, so it is (somewhat) fresh water. It was a fallen tree, and it is complete with the roots still on it. (This is why I want it) I found it next to the water. It was rotting a little bit, not much. It is VERY dried out. I broke the main tree part, and found ants in it. I am left with the roots and part of the tree, about 3 feet high. I tossed it into the Bay to let the ants die for about 20 minutes, then drove it home. I will post pictures tomorrow night when I get back to my main house.


My question: Is it safe for a tank? And how do I go about preparing it? I plan on powerwashing it a bit to knock of the junk, then doing a salt soak for like a month. Any help/advice would be MUCH appreciative.


Thanks!

Bobby

 

[Fish Eat Fish]

Hey guys,

I am currently at Ocean City, Maryland. I found a EXTREMELY nice piece of wood, and would love to put it in my fish tank as a show piece. However, if you guys say it can't go in a fish tank, I can always put it in my beardie cage.

Anyway, about the piece. How do I determine if it is safe to go in my tank? I found it on the Bay side, so it is (somewhat) fresh water. It was a fallen tree, and it is complete with the roots still on it. (This is why I want it) I found it next to the water. It was rotting a little bit, not much. It is VERY dried out. I broke the main tree part, and found ants in it. I am left with the roots and part of the tree, about 3 feet high. I tossed it into the Bay to let the ants die for about 20 minutes, then drove it home. I will post pictures tomorrow night when I get back to my main house.


My question: Is it safe for a tank? And how do I go about preparing it? I plan on powerwashing it a bit to knock of the junk, then doing a salt soak for like a month. Any help/advice would be MUCH appreciative.


Thanks!

Bobby

I cant help ya too much but I just wanted to make sure you knew that the ants did not die in 20 min so be ready to find more



they could turn out to be some good free feeders though!

 

[Edwin]

I cant help ya too much but I just wanted to make sure you knew that the ants did not die in 20 min so be ready to find more



they could turn out to be some good free feeders though!

hell ya!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TheFanatic]

Scrub the hell out of it for one.

I found a piece of wood once that I scrubbed really well and baked it at 400 for about an hour to kill anything in it. Had no problems, but it sounds like this is too big for an oven.

I've heard of people that put wood in a big vat with water and some bleach to kill anything in the wood. Then they drain all the water and refill the vat and put about 1000X the amount of chlorine remover in the water to get the bleach out of the wood.

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

Boil and bake baby!

 

[Nic]

if it has parts rotting and ants in it which makes me wonder if there were or are termites in there as well it will rot away in your tank..... bake it and throw it in the lizards cage...