Is driftwood from the lake safe?

[Yellow Eye Tang]

Hi everyone,... I recently started a freshwater/brackish tank and it's up and running. It has had plenty of time to turn over and all the fish are doing great. I recently brought home a piece of driftwood from the lake that has been submerged in water. Other than a bit of mud on it, it looks like a killer piece of wood. It does not appear to have any impurities or ever been in a place that could have been fertilized or anything. Is there a method of cleaning it so that it can be placed in the water?

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

First I suggest power washing it with a hose or a strong pressure water. After that you can also go back and if it seems flakey and stuff from old wood coming off, carve the outside with a knife to get it nice and smooth. After that you just boil it atleast 2-3 times to get any bacteria gone, plus get all the tan out of it. Then it should be good to place in the aquarium.

All my dw in my tanks are from my local river (which is prob. dirtier then any lake) and I bought my dw straight in after I got it water logged. I never worried about boiling them which I should of, but it had no effect on my aquariums or fish, so in my experience i've never done the steps, but it's strongly suggested.

 

[Yellow Eye Tang]

Hey, thanks I appreciate the feedback. It's a fairly large piece so boiling it might be tough. I'm going to give it a good bath and see how the outside looks. Thanks

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

Yeah, I have a piece of dw I got from the bad flood we got here, and there is no way to boil it unless I got a hottub since it's prob. 3ft long. Looks way sick though. I'll prob. eventually try to water log it and such without doing the safety steps. Just make sure it's washed well and looks good before you get it into the tank.

 

[mgamer20o0]

how clean is the water source it came from. you can at least poor boiling water over it.

 

[jsoong]

I have collected driftwood in my tank as well. As long as the source is not polluted - away from farm run-off (you don't want any pesticides ... some can stay for years.) - and the wood is well seasoned (at least a couple years old so sap is gone), you should be reasonably safe.

I scrub off all the loose bits with a wire brush, then rinse the heck out of it with a water jet. My piece was too big to boil, so I just pour boiling water over it in a big tub.

 

[booginish]

driftwood looks very classy in a aquarium tank.

 

[MichaelsLilGray]

with your 3 foot long one... go get a trashcan and fill it with water.. let it stand for a week at a time before dumping it.. in a month or so, it should be safe to go.

 

[ellisb1]

I agree with what MichaelsLilGray said. I have small tanks, so I can always boil my driftwood. If you soak it for a week in water with 1 tsp. of salt per gallon for a week, then dump all of that water out and soak again in freshwater for another few weeks, you should be good. This will get all of the tannins out of the wood and wash all of the toxins (if any) out of the wood.

 

[robott]

i've also heard of people soaking in a light bleach solution, then soaking in a stronger dechlor.

 

[ellisb1]

That should work pretty well. I am always afraid of adding bleach to anything that could potentially soak it in. I might give it a shot one of these days though.

 

[djrusselljoseph]

i've also heard of people soaking in a light bleach solution, then soaking in a stronger dechlor.

Very true, you don't need much. With bleach, a little goes a loooong way.

 

[WhiteDevil]

I soak mine in a super hot water for 48 hours then steam it for 12 hours.

I only use bleach when I have bleach counteracter called sodium thisolate I believe, I had gotten a cup full from our marine biologist at work when I had the snail problem, he gave me this stuff and told me to use a non chlorinated bleach, it worked perfect.

I soak my tanks in hot hot water and a higher concentration of bleach due to how quick it evaporates.

 

[djrusselljoseph]

I soak mine in a super hot water for 48 hours then steam it for 12 hours.

I only use bleach when I have bleach counteracter called sodium thisolate I believe, I had gotten a cup full from our marine biologist at work when I had the snail problem, he gave me this stuff and told me to use a non chlorinated bleach, it worked perfect.

I soak my tanks in hot hot water and a higher concentration of bleach due to how quick it evaporates.

Nice process.
See, I had all the time in the world when I set up an old 66g about 4 years ago. I took 3-4 months to soak 4 pieces, hot water only in a deep laundry sink.

 

[WhiteDevil]

I hillbillied my set up. I used an old camp stove to heat the water and a power head to circulate the hot water from the holding/heating to the tub.

At that time I was a land surveyor, I worked 12-15 hour days and didnt have time to do anything but rig something up.

 

[djrusselljoseph]

Bah,
Who cares. It got done though right?

Look at me. I took 4 months to soak 4 pieces. Lol.

 

[WhiteDevil]

Yeah, the money was nice LOL, thats about it, most the work was on south chicago avenue, due to the vast amount of encroachments and just absurd claimed property lines. It could have paid better for the conditions( hence the user name its got nothing to do with a fish).

30 days per piece is about right though, I always counted the pieces then just figured that as months.

I am actualy going to get a piece today and some more fish possibly a new tank redecoration, I got about 300 LFS's near me so I will find something unique.

 

[Yellow Eye Tang]

The piece I got from the lake is gonna look killer. We had 2 major ice storms over the last three years. We were out on the boat and found a long slinder tree floating in the lake. We dragged it to shore so no one would run it over. I looked down at the root and it was awesome. I ended up cutting off the root section with a chainsaw. I figure the flat side I cut would sit on the gravel bed in the tank and the roots would be sprawled out in the water. Can't wait for this thing to waterlog.

 

[WhiteDevil]

We suspended our driftwood trunk/root system like that at work in our game fish tank(9k gallons US each) It looks awesome like that, gives the fish so much more structure to hide in and they all seem to love it especially as weather conditions change.

 

[ellisb1]

that will be awesome Yellow! post some pictures of that piece if you get a few minutes.