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Can I put manzanita branches into my tanks? All of the lfs around here only have small chunks of driftwood, which I'm not a big fan of. I've seen manzanita sold on Ebay as something that can be used in a tank, but I just want to be sure. I figure that if it doesn't sink (and I'm pretty sure it won't) I'll tie large-ish rocks to it until it stops trying to float. Would this work? The branches seem a lot harder than regular dirftwood.
So, if I bought the manzanita branches from a bird store that said they weren't treated with chemicals, would that work? Are they treated with chemicals?.. That wouldn't be safe for the birds, would it? How can I test it to see if it's safe?

Edited to correct my horrible spelling.


Last edited by bananacoladafuze at 19-Oct-2005 13:01

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Cake or death?

These are the curly gnarled hardwood branches aren't they?

I'm fairly sure they are ok after you soak them (takes a while for sinkage) but wait for advice from someone that actually has them

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I've never seen gnarled manzanita, but it -could- be what you're thinking of. It's the natural-looking wood they use for bird stands. It's a reddish-brown color - very pretty.

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Cake or death?

I have one of these branches in my tank, and it took about 2 weeks of soaking to mostly sink, so what I did was put some heavy duty black suction cups (like you get with filters) on the bottom of the tank, and tied the wood to the suction cups before putting in gravel. This wood will also stain your water like other driftwoods, so lots of soaking before putting it in the tank is a good idea. Something you may notice in the first few weeks of having your wood in the tank is that it grows patches of funky cloudy fungus. This is unattractive, but not harmful. You can scrape it off, or leave it and it will be gone in a few weeks. Another thing about this kin dof wood is that it may rot more quickly than driftwood, so you may have to replace it after a year or two (but I havn't had to yet, so I'm not sure how true this is).

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Oh, good idea.. I have some other driftwood I need to re-soak, anyway.
Will it change my PH?

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Cake or death?

well if ti is a dark color it more than likely has a high tannin content, which will diffuse into the water column forming tannic acid, which will decrease the pH. Of course it all depends on the hardness of you water and it's buffering ability.