making items

[Rudy_627]

can wood go into a tank?

 

[Rudy_627]

cause i wanna creat some houses for my fishies i have a scroll saw and im thinking about cutting some real nice designs for them lemme know if you guys have an idea

 

[millipede]

scroll saw huh? Check out the coconut shell link in my signature.
as far as regular wood goes, it depends on a few things I'm sure. You never want to just take some wood and drop it in.

 

[Rudy_627]

its some birch wood its easy to cut about 1/6 of an inch thick

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

I wouldn't recommend putting boards in a tank. IMHO.

 

[Rudy_627]

why not?

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

You don't know what chemicals they were treated with, anti-fungal, silver birch has a lot of oils in it, pine has tar/sap that could come out.. There are lots of reasons not to, if you really want to, then find a piece of driftwood that's been exposed to sun and water (typical of driftwood) just make sure it's big enough, then cut it into boards, using premade boards or green wood can have very un-predictable contents.

 

[Rudy_627]

cant i soak the birch wood outside in buckets of water for a day and take them out the next day and let them dry?

 

[Drake]

You probably could, but have you thought about using drift wood or petrified wood?

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Given that birch is a realtively soft wood, it would probably warp severely from that, and I doubt that 1 day would be sufficient, driftwood is soaked and exposed to waves crashing into it (washing it) for months or years.. I wouldn't take the chance with my fish of putting a pesticide or some other foriegn chemical (non-natural) into the tank.

Again, just my opinion.

 

[frog girl]

How about some tile if you want a tailored look. You would have to rent a special saw or get a good drill bit but it would be inert enough not to hurt the fish. I suspect you could even do some cool mosiac if you didn't used grout & used silicon for glue. Could look pretty neat.

If you must have wood look in nearby lakes,ponds, or that aren't too polluted just go yank some driftwood out of there & cut away. Careful if its in a sandy area though because that can really dull a saw blade.

Definitely don't use wood from the hardware store. They treat them with all kinds of things & many are kiln dried under pressure so they will resist things like absorbing water.