Sinking bouyant driftwood

[OnTheFly]

I am attempting to sink a very large piece of driftwood in my 60G tank. Nothing like you would see at a pet store. A really nice piece I picked up on a fishing trip years ago. After cleaning it as well as possible I put it in my cycling tank and temporarily forced it under water, hoping it might sink. After 10 days I can see this is going to be a VERY long process. What are my options? I can buy shale at LFS but hate to spend $25 on basically a sinker. Could I possibly use iron or cast iron? I have that laying around for free. My well water is hard and no significant iron content so I am thinking gradual rusting might not be a problem. Perhaps I could even remove the weight three months from now. The wood is basically a split log shape with some hollows and varies in dimension. About 40" long, 6-9" wide and 3'-4" thick. It's cool looking so worth the trouble to me. I have no way to boil anything this large. I guess I should mention my local "free rocks" are limestone. That's the last thing I need to add to my hard water tank. PH is high enough for my liking already.

Open to suggestions, or questions if I didn't explain it adequately.

 

[DutchMuch]

it can takes months for wood to sink in. I would go with the shale

 

[OnTheFly]

I may do that in the end. Shale is expensive here and I will need a lot if I do it now. This tank is just cycling so I may just weight it down with some limestone for now. If it leaches calcium WCs will fix it. I'll need considerably less shale in a few weeks as it water logs some. Only half as bad as it was but a long way to go.

 

[DutchMuch]

I may do that in the end. Shale is expensive here and I will need a lot if I do it now. This tank is just cycling so I may just weight it down with some limestone for now. If it leaches calcium WCs will fix it. I'll need considerably less shale in a few weeks as it water logs some. Only half as bad as it was but a long way to go.

Sounds good

 

[Fresh2o]

You can look for extras and discards of slate at hardware stores.
Or try garden shops. They usually sell slate and may have extras and broken pieces.

 

[OnTheFly]

You can look for extras and discards of slate at hardware stores.
Or try garden shops. They usually sell slate and may have extras and broken pieces.

Garden shop sounds like a good idea. It's $2.50 or more a pound at LFS. That would be fine if I only needed a couple pounds. It would make a decent life preserver right now. I was surprised how buoyant it is.