Real tree roots in a tank?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
knifegill;4525515; said:
Well, my Larch Bonsai died and it didn't kill snails so I tried it in the 30 gallon. Looks like winter all the time in there, but it's the whole tree. About 16" tall and semi-rooted into the gravel. No visible rotting of any kind. It's just sitting there bark and all.

That's pretty cool, I tried that with some cypress branches but they fungused up within 24 hours and I didn't have a pleco to keep it clean at the time. Looked really bad. ;)
 
I researched the manzanita wood and it looks like there are some trees native here in Nevada. I may take a hike to find some but I don't know if it would be worth the effort to up root a whole tree...I may be better off buying a manzanita stump.
 
Because my wood was to big for my pans to cook, I soaked my wood in water with sodium carbonate (cheap white cleaning product) for a few hours. Changing the water a few times until there was no more coloration of the water. The first time the water changed from white to dark red/black in minutes.

You must solve sodium carbonate in hot/warm water and then ad it to the other water where you want to soak the wood in. Flush your wood with clean water after wards.

This worked out great! The sodium carbonate works like a color magnet.
I had no (noticeable) coloring of the aquarium water and it's fast, cheap and easy to do. The wood is now almost 1 year in my tank.

You can use a rain barrel or small (inflatable) pool to soak bigger pieces of wood.
 
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