Bog/driftwood

[phoenixgsd]

i see alot of wood in tanks and wandered what types of wood are safe for tanks, is it possible to cut my own, or does it have to be special wood that is treated or dried first

 

[Aquatic Hippo]

I don't know what types of wood you can use, but you have to get a size you want, and stick it in a bucket. You need to let it saturate for I believe around 8 hours, about 3 times, so 24 hours in total to remove tanins. Otherwise your water will be brown. Then, you need to boil it for 15 minutes to hours depending on the size until it doesn't float anymore. Then its safe to add.

 

[raptorrex]

i see alot of wood in tanks and wandered what types of wood are safe for tanks, is it possible to cut my own, or does it have to be special wood that is treated or dried first

bog or drift wood often means "seasoned" wood.
bog wood will, or should have been, buried in earth of, Err, Bog. hopefully for many years.
incidentally, soaking it for a week wont even touch the tannins it releases. more often than not, it will take over a year for tannins to become, unobtrusive.

drift wood should have, Err, drifted for a long time. time enough for all the sap to have been driven out (as with bog wood).

both types of wood are then dried, before sale.

I'm unsure what type of wood bog wood tends to be. but i have a large chunk of oak in my tank, and that qualify's. lol.
Mapani is also sold for your aquarium. on the whole its a harder wood than most 'bog woods', though. and i think its just dried fore sale. not dug up from a bog.

drift wood can be any type. but i guess it would tend to be harder wood. as softer wood would be broken down.

if you are buying form a LFS or trusted vendor. just get the one you like.

I have found that Mapani tends to give off more tannins (more noticeable?). than plain Bog wood.
drift wood, in my limited experience, gives off none. though this could depend on the type of wood, i guess.

 

[phoenixgsd]

so its less hassle to buy one from a shop, rather then take a saw to a tree then

 

[OldMan47]

I have wood in my tanks that started in my back yard. What I did was intentionally kill a branch on my apple tree by girdling it. That is where you cut off the bark all the way around a branch so that the branch can't get any nutrients. The sap that carries water and other nutrients runs in a thin layer right under the bark on a typical tree. The next year I took a saw outside and lopped off that branch. It had dried nicely and was not rotting because I had left it elevated on the tree instead of lying on the ground. With almost no effort I removed the bit of bark that was still clinging to my branch. Then I simply mounted it on a piece of slate and plunked it into my tank. I do not spray my trees so I did not need to worry about any residual poisons on my branch.

 

[micko]

I get all my bogwood pieces from my fathers bog (like a marsh land but the soil is cut into smaller pieces and dried out for burning, similar to coal but free) here's a few pictures.

The first picture and last picture obviously would need soaking as they're quite brown in places so the tannis would be quite high. The rest have been pieces left out for years and once they were soaked so they'd sink they were added straight to the tank.
I would like to add that boiling wood is not something I'd suggest. It breaks down the wood.