types of driftwood

hi i was just wandering are there any sorts of wood that are not suitable for BN s tanks. i couldnt find any thing in the search..thanks

It is a good question. there are indeed types of wood that are not suitable for tanks.

First rule of thumb is: If its fresh wood, its going to kill your fish

Make sure your wood is long dead and hard (not rotting). if it is recently dead then it still has all the saps etc in it which can be very toxic to fish.

also make sure the wood is hard (yes, im sure there is a naughty joke in there somewhere). If the wood is soft or crumbly then it is probably rotting which will do nasty things to your tank.

Also, steer clear of any of the faster growing woods such as pine. Because it grows so fast it is often not a dense which leads it to rotting faster. Also, it is generally high in Acid which can cause large pH changes in your tank.

Any of the slower, hard woods are good.

also, driftwood from the beach can be a nice looking wood but make sure you soak the pants off it before you put it in your tank as it can still have a lot of salt on it.

And regardless of which wood you go with, make sure you boil/sterilise it before it goes in otherwise you are asking for trouble.

I use mopani and malaysian bogwood readily available at 2 lfs in my area

excellent,thanks guys i have a couple of peices but wanted to make sure they were ok first,ones a bit crumbly(termites i think) so ill give that one a miss i theink

I like to add the odd piece of coconut shell.

Buy yourself a nice coconut, cut it in half, either long ways or across the body, then after you have eaten the flesh, boil the shell for a couple of hours to help remove the tanins. I normally end up changing the boiling water about 3 times as it will go a dark purple colour. Drain, and let the shell cool, then put it in yout tank. Due to the boiling it will sink no problem.



Jon