Help With "wild" Driftwood

Hello i just ran into this beautiful piece of driftwood its pretty big being 3 ft by 2 ft however it was in my friends back yard and used as a decoration for his garden and i was just wondering what i have to do to it to make it safe enough to put into my aquarium thank you. I also attached a few bad pics but i don't have my camera so i had to use my phone

Fig1 said:

Hello i just ran into this beautiful piece of driftwood its pretty big being 3 ft by 2 ft however it was in my friends back yard and used as a decoration for his garden and i was just wondering what i have to do to it to make it safe enough to put into my aquarium thank you. I also attached a few bad pics but i don't have my camera so i had to use my phone

Click to expand...

someone once told me to stick it in the oven to 'kill' any bugs/parasites that might be on it. Maybe put in boiling water?

hopefully someone else has a better suggestion

...)

I have boiled driftwood in water (might be difficult for this large piece), but boiling water should work too. I have also used a bleach solution (1 cap to 1 bucket) to soak the wood in, then rinse it thoroughly and let it soak in clean water overnight after the rinsing.

You might have to keep it submerged a while to ensure it doesn't float and to get the tannins out (so it doesn't make your water brown).

If you add aquarium salt to the water it will make make is sink faster. Also if there seems to be algae or a fungus type thing growing on it use peroxide in the water. Make sure you rinse the wood well before adding it to the tank. Also remember wood can effect the ph of the water bog wood especially lowers the ph but not by much. I soaked a piece that went in a nano for 2 months before it finally sank so be patient.

Thanks a lot for all your help i think im gonna pour boiling water on it i was wondering if freezing it would be as effective as boiling the piece?

Freezing it would probably damage the wood greatly if there's any water in it at all - it'll crumble easier, and ruin the shape. And to truly kill most bacteria and stuff... freezing won't. Some may die, but others go dormant/hibernate/slow down.

Boiling water's probably your best choice.

baking it might be more suitible for you, it may sink on its own, i bought malaysian driftwood, didnt boil didnt soak didnt bake or anything (just rinsed the styrofoam off) and it sunk on its own easily. I have a lot of tannins in the water now but i like that yellow color.....

Thanks alot for all yuor help guys I think im gonna go with the boiling water, hopefully it wont take too long to sink.

lol well you sure as heck cant boil that thing its huge! Just plop him in the oven for a little bit. not to long for he could catch on fire.

I have a 3 foot piece of driftwood in my tank which caused me a few probs. Luckily I had an old beer making container for mashing hops that I could use for boiling the wood. I noticed that even after soaking the wood for a week very little in the way of tannins came came out compared to when I boiled it for 15 minutes. Boiling is definetly the best way of doing it if you can. The main problem I see with heating it in an oven is that it will dry the wood out which may then cause problems getting it to sink.

My piece of wood took about 2 months of soaking before it started to sink. Adding half a pound of sodium bicarb is supposed to speed up the process.

James