need opinion on piece of wood

[SeymourFRESH]

my friend has these 2 really cool pieces of wood that he used for his snake cage, but he's donating them to me

they don't sink but i'm gonna find a way to weigh them down until they finally fill with water.

what i'm wondering though, is that whenever i fill up the bucket with the wood in it, it turns the water solid brown EVERY time. i can not seem to get them clean

should i even put them in my tank?

 

[Jarred Darque]

Soak them. do water changed everytime that the water get REALLY brown.

what you are seeing is both the leeching off of any sorrt of chemicals, possible waste/mess from the snake cage, that should be gone sooon though.
Wood also contains tannen. it stains the water borwn, creating what is called black water. If you have Sout h American fish, this isnt much of a problem as this is what they are originally from in the wild. otherwise soak the wood long enough that it no longer turns water brown.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

i have the same wood i think. it was a reptile brand branch, and did the same thing. i just ended up putting it in a big rubbermaid and left it outside in the heat (arizona) and the water would pretty much be to the boiling point. i've heard that if you boil them it helps speed up the sinking process, and the brown tint to the water.
after a while about 1 week or so i think, the water stopped turning dark brown, and it started sinking. i did have some bricks holding it down before, but then it was like only one half of it wouldnt sink so i left it in more.

once it stopped turnin water brown tho, i kinda got impatient with waiting for it to sink, so i just weighted it down in my tank. after about a month, i took the weight off, and it stayed under so ya. it does however, after about a month start to turn water light brownish still tho, but i just chandge water and it goes away.

i think u could put carbon in too to take away the color, but i'd let someone else say something aboutthat cause im not sure

hope this helps
mike

 

[rich311k]

Carbon will help remove the color. You can just wait it out. The tannins wont hurt your fish. My 29 is kind of tea colored it will go away eventually.

 

[Rondory]

Good luck!

I bought wood at the LFS thinking it was meant for an aquarium and later found out that it was for reptiles. Well, I soaked the darn thing for almost 2 months and it still floats. I glued it to a piece of heavy slate without any luck!

 

[sir_dudeguy]

yeah, i took a plastic sandwich baggie, filled it with some of the sand in my tank, and tied it to the log w/fishing line
then after a month or two i took the line and baggie off, and it didnt float

 

[SeymourFRESH]

yeah i know all wood will generally sink if held under water for a good ammount of time

grapevine driftwood is great for that! it's made for reptiles but it's really cheap and it looks cool too!

 

[sir_dudeguy]

thats what mines called!! i couldnt for the life of me think of the name lol
and did your grapevine feel kinda goo-y after bein in the water? my tank hasnt changed at all because of it, i was just wondering what the goo e stuff was

 

[SeymourFRESH]

yeah it did, but i'm pretty sure all wood/objects get like that after being in fishwater for so long

 

[caribou]

If possible boil your wood if it isn't too big for you largest pot. You'll be shocked how much oils and tannens can come out of the wood. If its a very thick heavy piece, I change my water a couple of times while cooking the wood. I use slate pieces to anchor my driftwood down. You can get it at your LFS or garden store. Its easy to drill, use stainless steel screws to attach it. I like simmer my driftwood for at least a couple of hours. HTH!

 

[SCFatz]

Grape vine is ok for tanks??!!

I had some in mine and it looked great at first..then it started to grow hair so I pulled it out.After some discussion at the LFS the fish guy said it couldn't be used and was for reptiles only.

Kinda bummed me a bit because it looked great in there at first.

 

[Jarred Darque]

it is possible it wasnt cleaned well enough, and fungus started to grow off of contaminents. the other way to take care of that is with certain type of fish will keep it clean. but any wood can be used. certain types of wood just work better. Malaysian driftwood sinks immediately....(I have no idea why it is called driftwood then) and looks great.

I like my water the tea color brown. If you have angels and you leave them under these balckwater conditions you will see a liveliness and colors come out of them you never imagined. I would imagine that Discus would be the same. Tehy also come from heavy blackwater conditions if I remember right.

The only problem with blackwater is that if you do not have enough lighting, then the tank is always VERY dark and hard to see your fish....

 

[DeFeKt]

it might pay to also remember that some woods will never stop leaching tannins into your water. hope this isn't the case.

 

[brant]

You can add aquarium salt to your water you are soaking them in it will help suck out the tannins plus help kill any nastys such as parasites that might be on the wood.
Good luck.

 

[tropicfishman]

I havea gecko cage and I have this awesome piece of wood, only probally is it has poopie all over it and its covereed with a flaky bark, I'm really thinking about shaving the bark off and boiling that sucker, its an aweosme piece lol

 

[GlitcH]

SeymourFRESH,
I've kept snakes before and I want to point out one thing I haven't seen mentioned here so far [I skimmed through this post].

Snakes get mites......and the medication used to kill them is very strong.
If the previous owner used any mite meds while that drifwood was in the tank....you will be very wise to boil the heck out of it before assuming it will be ok in your aquarium.

I know this will remove any mite medication cuz I've done it in the past without any problems in the aquarium.
BTW I boiled the wood for an hour.
Good luck

 

[SeymourFRESH]

whoa! grapevine bad for tanks? snakes get a lot mites?

all i did was used the hottest of hot water, and i would let it soak in a bucket of that for a while. then i changed it out a few days later, and repeated the process 2 more times. then on the final day i rinsed it off with hot and cold water for a little bit, then i put it in the tank

PLUS, he hasn't had his snake in about 4 months at least.

you guys think i'm cool? hope so :-/