Driftwood?

[PheonixKingZ]

(Congrats on your 1,000K reaction score @Deanasue. )

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Ok guys, here a piece I found....

It looks pretty bad now, but I’ll get it all clean. Then I’ll soak it for a while. What do you guys think?

 

[Retired Viking]

What trees does this area include?

Nice pieces @Retired Viking. I wish I could find some nice pieces around my house.

There are all sorts, lots of thick woods. Some areas around the dunes are mostly birch which is a hard wood but also elm, oak and walnut trees. There are plenty of softwood trees like pine, evergreen and cedar trees too. I have a woods about 100 yards away from my house.

 

[FishGuest5123]

(Congrats on your 1,000K reaction score @Deanasue. )

Didn’t even know. Thanks!

 

[FishGuest5123]

Ok guys, here a piece I found....
View attachment 99311
It looks pretty bad now, but I’ll get it all clean. Then I’ll soak it for a while. What do you guys think?

Nice!

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Thanks! I just finished scrubbing it really good and washing it down. It is now soaking in my tub.

 

[Stan510]

The safest wood is collected by a stream. Riparian trees make wood that by no surprise look and do great in aquariums. Sycamore is very nice,Maple,Willows,Alders are common coast to coast. Second great place is the seashore/bays. It's almost always already stripped of bark and leached. You just don't know what kind of wood it is.

btw, Alder is said to last longest underwater,but I can tell you my favorite is Sycamores..the wood has colorful grain (revealed over time by Plecos) and very long lasting.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

The safest wood is collected by a stream. Riparian trees make wood that by no surprise look and do great in aquariums. Sycamore is very nice,Maple,Willows,Alders are common coast to coast. Second great place is the seashore/bays. It's almost always already stripped of bark and leached. You just don't know what kind of wood it is.

Thank you. I found the piece you see above by my stream. (Aka Indian creek. I didn’t name it, lol)

 

[Retired Viking]

Ok guys, here a piece I found....
View attachment 99311
It looks pretty bad now, but I’ll get it all clean. Then I’ll soak it for a while. What do you guys think?

nice piece, you may want to sand the rough parts down.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

nice piece, you may want to sand the rough parts down.

I thought about that, as it looked very sharp. But if I sand it down, it’ll look lighter in some spots than in others. Will this take away from its natural appearance? I mean fish in the wild are ok with it.

 

[Colin_T]

I would scavenge from lakes and stay away from oceans/Gulf. Oil spills can soak in and make wood toxic.

Herbicide runoff and other chemicals can contaminate freshwater creeks and streams too and they are much more toxic than an oil spill. However, if they can find a clean stream with a few branches in, you can take a couple of small bit, but don't take too much because it provides habitat and shelter for the native fishes.

 

[Retired Viking]

I thought about that, as it looked very sharp. But if I sand it down, it’ll look lighter in some spots than in others. Will this take away from its natural appearance? I mean fish in the wild are ok with it.

Take a look at the pieces I found there are lighter and darker spots, I have not touched the wood yet. If it is not old then yes you could end up with spots of different colored wood.

 

[Retired Viking]

Herbicide runoff and other chemicals can contaminate freshwater creeks and streams too and they are much more toxic than an oil spill. However, if they can find a clean stream with a few branches in, you can take a couple of small bit, but don't take too much because it provides habitat and shelter for the native fishes.

That is why I avoid taking any driftwood from the river that is close to me. There are a lot of farms upstream on the river. Once the snow is gone I may check out the woods next to me, plenty of oak and elm trees. The stream/creek flows through the woods and is fed by a spring so the water is very clear and clean but there are no fish because of the small falls along the way.

 

[Byron]

I don't know why it is so difficult for some to fathom, but collecting wood from any local area is highly risky. If you do, it must be hardwood (oak, beech, similar). It must be completely dead dry throughout, which means not from a watercourse/pond/lake, and off the tree long enough that no sap remains and the wood is brittle; twigs and smaller branches will usually be safe like this, but larger thick chunks...you can never know. And the area must be "safe," meaning not close to industry, roads, farms, etc.

Coniferous trees are soft wood, and have cones. They usually have needles, and are evergreen. Pine, spruce, fir, hemlock, juniper, cedar. Never use these as their sap is toxic. Also, being soft wood, they more readily absorb and retain liquids that are often toxic in themselves, and they will rot much faster and I understand this breakdown also releases toxins from these woods.

Never collect wood from water because it will likely contain pathogens. Someone mentioned "fish in the wild are OK with it"...no, they are not. In nature the water volume is considerably greater than in a closed aquarium, and fish can easily "swim away" but not in the aquarium when some toxic substance begins to leech out. Also, local fish are immune to local pathogens to some degree, but tropical fish are not because the pathogens in tropical and temperate zones are different (some of them). This is why it is never safe to release any tropical fish/plant/snail into the local ecosystem.

An illustration. Back in the 1990's I had a problem with the fish in one tank that slowly beecame more and more lethargic; new fish would die overnight, but the cories that had been in the tank for a couple years sat on surfaces respirating rapidly. I tested everything I could, and finally consulted the curator of freshwater tropical fishes at the Vancouver Aquarium who was also a keen hobbyist. The end result is, it turned out to be some toxic substance leeching from a huge chunk of wood (in hindsight I believe it was cedar) which I had purchased in a fish store. I removed all thee wood, and after a complete tear down the issue was gone and the fish recovered. During our discussions, the Curator told me of a collecting trip to South America he made a couple of years previous, and he brought back some Apistogramma along with the native leaves that were lying on the substrate and which the species used in spawning. Back home, after several weeks, the cichlids overnight showed severe signs of a problem, and were all dead within hours. Tests revealed that the leaves had released a natural toxin as they decomposed. In the natural habitat, the fish had no issues because the water carried the toxin downstream; but not in an aquarium.

A few dollars saved is not much of a saving if your fish weaken and die.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

A few dollars saved is not much of a saving if your fish weaken and die.

How much is the driftwood up in Canada? The driftwood here is crazy expensive. A small piece cost over/around $18. Any nice sized pieces cost over $40 and so on.