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OK this thought has floated through my mind long enough, so I had better ask and just get it done...

A buddy of mine had a tree that got struck by lightening some years back (5?) and split it into 3 sections...Well, in May 1 of these sections finally fell down, then at the beginning of this month another section fell down...would it be possible to take (for lack of words) chunks out of this tree or any other tree for that matter and use it as driftwood?

I was thinking (especially since we live in the Houston area, and chemical plants are abundant) of boiling the chunks for a bit, couple of hours maybe, and then maybe soaking it to get it to sink in some aquarium salt solution, and rinse, and soak in freshwater again...would this work? Am I just losing my mind? Or would there still be a chance of sap or other contaminants in the pieces that would harm the fish and plants that would later be attached?

Thanks ahead of time, my mind really needs to quit with this running in circles bit, heidi





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Heidi

Several factors to consider.
Type of tree. Some woods will rot very quickly, others will float and have to be fixed down
Any chemicals used in and around the area and certainly the root are.
Does it have tannins.
If any of these pieces have been on the ground and contaminated by animals and birds.

In the long term buy the safe stuff and no problems at all.
That big piece gave off practicaly no tannins at all and the new tank is crystal clear from day one after a few hrs

Keith

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ok, trees as driftwood is not as crazy as it sounds. the main thing in using trees as driftwood is to stick with hardwoods rather than pine or ash for example. second is to make sure that the wood is bug free, termites having nibbled on that piece of wood isn't something you want. next of course would be tannin output, the longer you soak/boil a piece of new wood the fewer the tannins over time. look at it like this, most of the wood sold for aquariums is either deadfall or grapevine. if they can weight the wood why can't you. slate or similar siliconed to the wood and then hidden beneath your gravel will work just fine. main points are again, clean wood which is free from infestation before the cleaning process, adequate cleaning of the wood to remove the bulk of any tannins which it may leach, be sure that its a hardwood tree, and make sure it will sink, either by weighting or waterlogging. hope this doesn't contradict to badly with what everyone else has to say as I know that this works well.

If you have corydoras and/or loricariids, softwood will be the driftwood of choice.

I've used deadwood rather than driftwood in most all of my tanks. Works fine, just needs a bit longer in the prep stages.
Considering your comments on the chemical plants I'd run carbon while soaking the wood, and change out the water more frequently.
Pine isn't the best but it does work.

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