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Hi all!

I got a huge piece of DW i got from an Airplant/Orchid festival at the botanic gardens near me, and i had forgotten to mist the airplants, and they died......So now i have this huge hunkering piece of driftwood shaped as an "L" with a large head. I feel it is a great piece, and it looks like a Mopani DW, but i am sure it is grapevine, as it said so on a box in the LFS, and those pieces looked just like mine.

Now i have soaked it for like 1 week, and then added it to my 10g to sink, but the thing is, that it dosent sink!!! Ive had it in their, about 95% of it was covered in water, and it still hasnt sunk!!! I am wondering if it is too light or not dense enough to sink, and stay sunken.

Can somebody enlighten me with the knowledge of How to Sink Grapvine DW? Thanks soo much!

~Goby

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Hi,
I don't know of any magic way to bypass time. Driftwood
takes years to become waterlogged enough to sink to the
bottom.
Allowing it to soak, and repeated water changes
will help, but in the end you may have to find a rock
and attach it to the rock in some manner so the rock holds
the wood down.

Many use a piece of slate. Slate is inert, cleaves so that
the pieces are flat, and can be drilled.
Some stainless steel screws then go
from the bottom of the slate up into the wood.
Then the slate is laid on the glass bottom of the tank
and the substrate is piled around and over the slate to
hide it from view.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Brains still a little foggy, so if I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me but...
I seem to remember that grapevine works great for snakes and lizards but in the aquarium not only does it never sink but that it also degrades pretty fast.

Not saying you shouldn't try using it. Attach it to slate or any other rock you have in the tank. Since it's already pretty wet I'd just try tying it, or stick an end under some rocks.

^_^

Don't even consider it at all if it is any fruit & or vine You can be 200% sure it has had many chemicals used over its life time and as soon as it is in water it will start to release them into your tank.

Need I say any more

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Keith

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I thought the sign at the flowerfest said organic, but you do make a good point there keith. I will watch and see, but i had kept the DW with some lefover carbon from an open packet. It may have absorbed some of the chemicals?

Is grapevine really that bad? Aww, i was looking foward to using it......Oh well, i guess i will buy some from my LFS....They have OK mopani wood, and one looks really good. Just a bunch of though....

Thanks

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if you want to find some good drift wood peices look at maybe a local chain LFS (petsmart or petco) and look in the clearance area... i got a nice peice of mopani wood from there for about 4$ and it was usually like 15-20$...

and try your grapevine ouot a bit if you want, but just keep an eye open...

if you want to remove mre chemicals(if they are even present) try boiling it...

good luck

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

Well, im not so sure its grapevine anymore. I saw some real, labeled California grapevine wood, and it looks nothing like what i have. My "grapevine" might actually be mopani wood!!!

I will get some slate to weigh it down tomorrow!!!

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mopani wood is naturally very very dense... it would sink automatically off the bat (i bought a peice a couple months back) you dont have mopani if it doesnt sink...

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

Hi, I bought some grapevine for my tank once, because it had such a beautiful and twisted shape. People here told me it was more suited for snakes, not so great for fish tanks. I found by personal experience they were right. I removed it, after it began to quickly degrade in the water and, even worse, seemed to be releasing a white mouldy substance into the water as it did so.

Cheers
TW