ok near my house their are a few small rivers and everytime i drive by them i see alot of wood floating in them. i was curious if it was possible to use any of this wood in my tank. of course i would thoroughly clean the wood to get rid of any of the rivers bacteria and what not. i was thinking about cleaning it and drying it out in the sun. is this possible?
River Wood
- Thread starter RE TurboII
- Start date
Using wood from a natural source is possible and popular. Cleaning the log and killing parasites is a pain though. If it's floating it's not water logged.
If you allow it to dry completely it'll take forever to get it water logged again.
Before you expend a lot of effort on something huge try a small piece first. Submerge it in a trash can with tapwater and bleach for a couple of weeks. Pull it out and examine it. Smell it. If the only odor you detect is bleach, drain the water and refill using your normal conditioner. Soak it again for a few weeks. Pull it, examine it, looks good? smells okay? Use it.
If you live in an apartment forget it.
If you allow it to dry completely it'll take forever to get it water logged again.
Before you expend a lot of effort on something huge try a small piece first. Submerge it in a trash can with tapwater and bleach for a couple of weeks. Pull it out and examine it. Smell it. If the only odor you detect is bleach, drain the water and refill using your normal conditioner. Soak it again for a few weeks. Pull it, examine it, looks good? smells okay? Use it.
If you live in an apartment forget it.
me and my friend are gonna try it today. we plan on powerwashing it to get anything we dont want out. then were gonna soak it.
Some people just boil if its small enough to fit in a pot.I soak bigger pices in 1 cup bleach/10g water for two days then heavy salt solution then a few waterchanges over the course of a week to get th salt and tannins out,keep changing till water isnt yellow anymore
submerge it in a bucket of water and put a lid on it so no light can get in leave it for a week do this for four weeks then then after 4 weeks fill it up again and put the lid on and leave it for two weeks . Without light everything will die and you wont risk leaching bleach into your aquarium later on. It takes some time but it works. I am not a fan of using bleach or any other chemical toxic to fish in any situation when it comes to aquariums.