Driftwood found...need advice treating.

[Ansel Marrow]

Ok after looking for weeks at shops for a decent peice of treated driftwood but they are either way outta my price range for the peices I want (100 dollars for a peice of wood to sit in my tank yeach!). So I went down to the bayou and found a gorgeous peice. I went about treating it. Rinsed off all of the mud (2/3rds of it was actually stuck in mud) and after I soaked it in the tub a coupla times, I noticed that the water was clear. Then I began to mull over it and scrape away any dead or rotting bark, which actually is all over it. Basically after I scrub it down, is there anything else I should do to it before I introduce it to my tank? I was thinking about varnishing it, but Im afraid Id lose the exellent texture and it would look fake. Any suggestion/ideas?

 

[Allivymar]

Hiya Ansel and welcome to Aquariumadvice.

Scott wrote a nice article on driftwood; you may want to check it out: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showquestion.php?faq=2&fldAuto=34

 

[Electrobes]

haha there is another post about treating wood that i wrote

 

[Electrobes]

whoa whoa you wanted to varnish it AND then put it into your tank!?!?!? after you rescrub it.. you need to make sure its waterlogged. You can appraoch the bleaching method int he article, I just shot straight for the getting a rubbermaid tub filling it with water, ran a water pump to move the water, salted the hell out of it (doing all of this today, been running for about 4 hours now, heh less than two weeks to go!).

 

[tkos]

Don't varnish as most varnishes will just slowly peel off and could affect your water.

Just boil and cool, then change the water and do this a few times.

 

[Electrobes]

Hey is it possible to OVER salt when curing driftwood?

 

[Ansel Marrow]

Thanks for the replys guys, im reading up on it. Will be back to this thread with more questions. What salt should I use btw? and how to waterlog?

 

[Electrobes]

Hey Ansel, go to lowes or home depot and look for water softeners (salt), look for the purest grade, everyone says 99.9%, I've only found 99.6%. Basically get a tub and then put a brick or something to hold down the pieces of driftwood underwater, remember that these pieces of wood will give a good fight, won't be too easy to set them down and keep'em down. It is also said to use a cup of this salt per 10 gallons that you keep the pieces of wood in (i.e. the tub). I think I over did it, but wanna know if that is bad or not

 

[Ansel Marrow]

Its already waterlogged, it sinks like a damn brick and weighs a ton. Ill post a pic before i put it in my tank, its gorgeous. Equivelant price for this peice im estimating is probabaly around 300 its so freaking huge.