tips on natural wood in tank

[tomherndon]

any tips on plants to avoid in the southeast US? I've got a ton of untended yard with lots of small shrubs/trees and I'm wondering if there's any of the plants I need to avoid if I'm going to trim some limbs and use them for 'scaping my tank. -debark a limb and hang it upside down in the tank to emulate roots. I was thinking that poison ivy makes some great shapes, but would be really bad on the fish if the urishiols in the sap dissolve into the water. . . But what about some other plants/vines - native grapes, oak saplings etc. . .

I've been thinking I could trim some bamboo from a neighbors stand to make a 'teepee' kind of structure on one side of the tank? any tips experience out there on that too?

 

[mgamer20o0]

you want dead wood.... the saps and all that i dont think is too good for the tank.

 

[jsoong]

I would not use green wood in my tank ... too high risk of stuff leeching out.

Any non-poisonous hardwood species is generally safe after aging to use as driftwood.

You can also use certain live land plants submerged in the tank, as long as the leaves are above water. People have use lucky bamboo stems in their tanks as decoration and just have a few leaves above water so the bamboo don't die. <Note that "lucky bamboo" in NOT real bamboo .... so I don't know if real bamboo will survive such a setup. Dead bamboo should be OK since it is widely used in ponds with fish .... but I have no real experience or read anything about it in aquariums. > There are a few other plants that are suitable to grow with stems or roots under water. I can't remember the names off hand .....

 

[Johnny Tuttle]

When you see very fancy South American biotope aquariums with sticks in the substrate amongst the plants, are those bamboos?

 

[mgamer20o0]

Manzanita

 

[tomherndon]

Speaking of deadwood, we've got a pile of loose limbs hickory, oak and maple, anything in there I should avoid if I'm going to try to cut a set to resemble a root cluster?

thanks for all the input! trying to get my fish off the bottom and out of the java ferns without spending a ton on lights and new plants. . .

 

[aqua man]

make sure you boil whatever you decide to use!

 

[OldMan]

Hickory, oak and maple should be fine. Avoid using walnut/pecan group. They tend to exude growth inhibitors into the soil and I wouldn't want to see what they do to my fish. Another wood to avoid would be any cedars or similar woods that resist insects and rot. Face it, how do they avoid insects and rot? Not for my tank thank you.