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Bogwood - Hints And Tips

Bogwood, Mopani Wood, Driftwood, whatever you call it, is a major feature of many aquaria, and I for one consider a freshwater aquarium incomplete without it. But, before using bogwood in the aquarium, some degree of planning and forethought are required. Some attention to the practicalities before starting will not only make the process of integrating bogwood into the aquarium easier, but allow one's creativity to flourish too!

So, here are some basic points to remember.

Point One : Size. How big is the destination aquarium? How big are the inmates? This will place the first major constraint upon your choice of pieces of bogwood (ignoring price for a moment, of course, if you're buying your wood from your LFS). If your aquarium is modestly sized, and stocked with small Characins and small Corydoras, then there's obviously little point in bringing home a lump of Giant Sequoia that needs a flat-bed truck to transport it! Similarly, something the size of my bogwood 'boot' (a favourite playground for my Panda Catfish) is going to be next to useless in a giant aquarium containing a Tiger Shovelnose Catfish - the Sequoia root is going to be much more appropriate for this setup, not least because the Tiger Shovelnose will try and rearrange the decor, and robust decor will be needed to prevent this. Learn from one of my mistakes - I took home a piece of bogwood last year, that looked wonderful - I thought it would make the ideal piece of aquarium furniture to hide the powerhead, and drape the Java Moss over. Having soaked it for six weeks, I found out, too late, that it was too big. Then, determined to make it fit, I took it outside, and tried chopping the bottom off to make it fit - in an unlit back yard on a Winter evening. Not only did I come close to amputating one of my own toes, I also ruined the piece of wood, because it split when I tried to chop it. So, take a tape measure when shopping for bogwood!

Point Two : Soaking. ALL pieces of wood destined for aquarium use should be pre-soaked beforehand. A lump of dry wood contains a whole range of substances that may be beneficial in small quantities in certain aquaria, but which will prove toxic in excess. The excess needs to be removed. If you have a large enough container for the purpose, then boiling helps speed the process up, but even if you boil a piece for four or five hours, this won't remove all of the excess. The ONLY way to guarantee that the excess is removed is to soak the wood for a long period of time. Four weeks is a basic minimum for small pieces. Large pieces, comprised of thick sections of wood, will need correspondingly longer soaking times. My bogwood 'boot' was given six weeks even though it was mostly hollow, just to be doubly sure, as it was destined for an aquarium containing Panda Catfish, which do NOT like excess acidity. If you're the kind of person that likes to go hunting for intricate and artistic pieces of fallen tree in forests, then increase the time period accordingly. Pieces of wood from forests will require additional attention, not only to kill off any still-living cells in the wood, but to remove any substances that might be left behind by fungi, for example, that may have grown upon the wood. Some fungi produce wastes that will be extremely toxic to aquarium fish - these MUST be removed before the wood is used. Note also that the kind of destination aquarium will have some bearing upon soaking times too: a 'blackwater' South American aquarium will stand some leaching of humic acids from the wood into the water, and consequently soaking times can be slightly reduced for wood destined for these aquaria. On the other hand, soaking times will need to be increased if the destination aquarium is an alkaline Rift Lake aquarium, or a brackish aquarium.

Point Three : Intended Purpose. Is your bogwood being used purely for aesthetic purposes, or for a more practical reason? If the bogwood is intended to provide caves for shelter and psychological security for fishes such as loaches, Synodontis Catfishes etc., then picking appropriate shapes will be dictated by this. Likewise, if the wood is being used to 'hide' the technology, to re-create the 'piece of river in the living room' look, this too will dictate the shapes chosen. On the other hand, if hiding places for the fishes or 'hiding' the technology are secondary considerations, then the only real limits will be personal creativity. This doesn't mean that creativity can't have an input if the wood is intended for primarily practical purposes - my bogwood 'boot' is a wonderful artefact, a prize piece of fine art, but it also hides the powerhead, provides a home for the Pandas (and a playground too!), and a home for the Java Moss.

Point Four : Stability. Intricate and exotic shapes are likely to be unstable. Therefore, care and attention will be needed to ensure that once positioned in the aquarium, the chosen piece does not fall, with potentially catastrophic results. Even small pieces will, if they fall upon a small fish, crush it to death. Large pieces of the kind that will be needed for big Cichlid or Pimelodid Catifsh aquaria, may even break the aquarium floor if they move suddenly. Some pieces may require stabilising by fixing to flat pieces of slate: in the case of the kind of very large pieces needed for a Tiger Shovelnose aquarium, these might even require cementing into a concrete base! If this is needed, then the concrete will need additional treating before it becomes safe for aquarium use, just as concrete pond liners need treating.

Point Five : Special Considerations. Some fishes need wood in the aquarium. Bristlenose Loricariids (Genus Ancistrus) are of course popular favourites among Board members here, and these are among several different Lorcariid Catfishes that need wood in their diet. Other Loricariids may not need to actually eat the wood, but need it as a substrate upon which algae of various kinds can grow, and find it MUCH easier to graze algae from wood than from the aquarium glass. Otocinclus Catfishes are a case in point: they can graze some algae from glass, but find it much easier to graze from pieces of wood. Some Otocinclus will even add a small amount of the wood to the algae, resulting in Cory_Di's infamous huge droppings Other fishes will make use of hollow pieces of wood for reproduction: Rineloricaria Catfishes will use hollow logs as safe havens for their eggs, and of course, there are many species of fishes that are cave-spawners, all of which will take advantage of suitably shaped bogwood with hollows for the purpose. For those aquarists who find the prospect of using flowerpots for cave-spawning Apistogramma Cichlids to be woefully artificial, a well-chosen piece of wood can provide the same utility value, while retaining the 'natural' look in the aquarium. And, of course, they have a special use in the Archer Fish aquarium - half-submerged long branches provide a perfect 'gunnery range' within which Archer Fishes can show off their impressive artillery skills! Finally, of course, bogwood is the perfect substrate upon which to grow forests of Java Moss and Java Ferns, the latter rewarding attachment of its roots to bogwood with a lush growth of greenery, that in my aquarium needs regular and fairly severe thinning!

As I said at the outset, I happen to be one of those people who considers most freshwater aquaria to be incomplete without bogwood. As a means of creating the 'river in the living room' look, I regard it as essential. Furthermore, a trip to a forest can provide the observant and alert aquarist with some truly wonderful ornamental pieces, provided of course that the caveats above are heeded with respect to soaking. No Bristlenose keeper can afford to be without it, and it has a place in all manner of other freshwater setups too. With a little ingenuity, it may even find occasional use in a marine setup, although here its use will be principally as a structural stabiliser. But, as with all other aquarium furnishings, it requires a little bit of care and forethought before it can be used to reproduce spectacular underwater grottoes. Apply that care and forethought, though, and even a relative newcomer to aquarium keeping can use it to produce, with time and patience, a stunning vista against which fishes can display resplendent colours and finnage in a convincing natural setting. I'm a BIG fan of bogwood, and always try to have the odd spare pre-soaked piece lying around ready to be pressed into service - I've recently added a large, intricate piece to the Panda breeding aquarium, and it's playing host to a nice forest of Java Moss and Java Ferns to provide some hiding places for future fry. Not only will it provide cover, but with the added Java Moss and Java Ferns, it will also provide a haven for those nice small organisms that fry love to feed on, and will hence go some way toward helping me keep the fry alive!




Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Cali, Again another excellent bit of prose on your part.

This should be pinned as a permanent note in this area as there is a question almost daily on how to treat bog/drift wood for the aquarium.

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Education and fun to read, just like all your other articles! You can't keep mention the Bogwood Boot without a picture though]!

On the side note, don't your own personal forum where you posted all your articles?

Bogwood Boot

(Albeit covered in Java Moss as it usually is )

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Great article as are all your posts

The Amazon Nut...