Planetnicolas;4397631; said:
I doubt pine would contain arsenic because it is a wood that rots easily and arsenic is added to prevent this rotting thats why alot of pine lumber has arsenic as compared to cedar which repels insects and does not need to be treated. im just thinking here anyone know?
lol your right pine does not contain arsenic. When i saw someone post that i nearly burst out laughing i mean seriously ? i don't think these trees would live very long if they had arsenic in thier tissues.
Pine doesn't rot easily btw conifers resist rotting far better than most hardwoods this is because of the saps. Theoretically these saps would be toxic but it's highly unlikely that they pose a significant threat to aquarium fishes. For several reasons. First of assuming your getting fairly old driftwood the saps will have degraded or leached out long ago (also if you are lucky enough to find wood in a bog the natural acidity of the bog will denature many of the saps) when pine sap (or pitch) is left out in the air normaly it will take A VERY VERY long time to break down because in a non moist environment bacteria that can degrade these saps cannot survive. Underwater it is different a much larger diversity of bacteria can survive and therefore it's only natural that some will happen to be cappable of degrading sap. This bacteria often form biofilms on the surface of the wood becuase pine sap is toxic to other bacteria (the natives would often use the sap of the Eastern white pine; Pinus Strobus, to treat gangrenous infections.) And sap naturaly will diffuse (dilute) into the surrounding water.
The second reason is that these saps are non water soluble (ever tried washing pine pitch of of a car with water? My dad did, didn't work at all.)
these saps will naturaly diffuse into the water column because they are semi liquid but they will not be in solution in the water. And therefore fish will not be able to pass them into their blood streams via their gills.
The other myth that pine will rot i call BS on this one too. My evidence is supported by the fact that at the bottom of the lake i collected all my driftwood from their are HUGE (100-150 foot logs) of White pine that drifted away from the sawmill that there once was at the other end of the lake. It is very common place for companies to go around (on other lakes) and "reclaim" thees large pieces of wood beucase the wood (more than 100 years later) is still hard and can still be made into furniture or whatever.
Basicaly what im getting at is that any type of driftwood will be perfectly fine for your tank as long as you excersize a little caution and check to make sure it has been underwater for long enough and any potential saps leached out. The best way to do this is to break off a little bit at the end and smell it, if it smells like pine sap leave it, if it smells like something you pulled up from the bottom of a lake then it's perfect.
So yes you can use pine/conifer wood but you just have to excersize a little more caution.
I currently have a 5 foot cedar log thats been in my tank for almost a year now and has shown no sign of rotting and hasen't killed my fish either so obviously im either a very special case or that people don't need to be as frightened by conifers as they are.
