Preparing driftwood

[erk419]

I saw a driftwood thread in here so I thought this would be a good place to post my question. I went to the lake today and found quit a few nice piece of driftwood. Now I've never had driftwood in my tanks before so I'm not sure what I have to do to them before adding them to my tank. Right now I have them all setting in a bathtub in the basement that we never use. I was planning on filling the tub up and letting them soak for awhile prob about a month.

So my questions are what do I need to do with them to get them ready for the tank. Also I'm not sure if some are going to sink or not is there away to waterlog them so they will sink instead of tieing them down or weighing them down with rocks.

Right now theres no water in the tub waiting until tommorrow so I can go to walmart to get a drain stopper.

Thanks

 

[MDK500]

Boil it and scrub it a little... then let it sit in that tub of water until it sinks or is water logged. Or just weigh it down in your tank after the boiling/scrubbing.

 

[erk419]

Ok thanks some piece there's no way I can boil them beause there way to big. Would putting straight hot water in the tub work. Like I said it will be at least a month before the tank will be ready for them so I can leave them to soak in the tub tell then.

 

[MDK500]

That could work, I'm just worried because if you got them from a lake, there's plenty of stuff living on/in the wood that you don't want in your tank. I heard somewhere that soaking it in a solution with about 5% bleach could work, but I don't know how that would work out.

 

[Crispy]

Soak it in your tub with hottest water you can. Change every day/every other day. Scrub it good a few days before adding to your tank. I let mine bake in the sun for a few weeks before soaking, but it's winter here so that wouldn't work.

 

[mes1234]

What I did with mine was: I soaked in a tub with 10% bleach for 24 hours. I then changed the water and added just hot water. I changed the water everyday for 2 weeks. This makes sure that all the bleach and tannins were gone. After 2 weeks, the tannins were gone and I know the organisms were dead.