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I have been reading a book to help me learn more about freshwater aquariums and came across something interesting involving decorations for your aquariums. Apparently, you can pick a any stick or piece of wood from outside, and if you put at least 3 coats of polyurethane varnish on it it will keep the wood from releasing any products that can affect your water conditions. Anyone know if this is actuall true or not. I would love to do it, but i dont want to take a risk and have any problems with my aquarium getting screwed up and having to start all over.

Thanks

I've never read anything like that

Frankly I'd rather have the tannic acids released into the tank (yes they do lower ph somewhat) than to have polyurethane in the tank! If you use anything to coat something with it should be 100% pure food grade silicone.

Driftwood is natural. It happens in the wild and no fish was ever harmed from it. Some fish require the lower ph and darker water that driftwood can sometimes cause. For tanks that dont' need the lower ph you can easily treat the wood with a number of hot (not boiling) water soaks to release most of the tannins prior to placing it in the tank. If its a wild caught piece of drifwood boiling or baking for a short time should be done to prevent any critters.

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Polyurethane Varnish at a good guess is used on some of those artifical decorations for aquariums.

If that is correct it could be safe to use.

Now saying all that I would not touch it with a 40 ft pole in other words keep well away. My reason for saying that is that in your tank there are many chemicals some natural and too many unnatural.

To put it bluntly forget about it go all natural.

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Keith

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You can, but i should point out that you should be careful what varnish you use, as i think that may have been written when the varnishes were solvent based.
I was reading the other day that most 2 part varnishes are actually water based. In general, this seems fine, but how it would handle being underwater, i don't know.

Plus, i think you would find that driftwood/bogwood would float if you didn't waterlog it.

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