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Sinking Driftwood

Started by Guest_dsaavedra_* , Nov 27 2009 02:35 PM

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24 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 02:35 PM

okay so a while ago i got a really cool looking piece of driftwood. its about 4 feet long. i knew it would just look awesome in my tank.

so i took it and i submerged it in a pond, and its been submerged for over a month. today i went to go retrieve it, and the darn thing still floats!

i took it back home to see how it would look in my tank and to see how it would fit. it fits nicely and i really like how it looks, and my fish like it too.

right now its just sitting in my tank w/ 50% of the water in there, my fish are playing under it.

soooooooooooo, how should i go about getting it to sink now that its in my tank? tie rocks to it or what?

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#2 Guest_threegoldfish_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 03:30 PM

With mine, I'm just letting it soak in tank and adjusting the hardscape as it sinks. I've got four long branches and so far the thinnest one has sank but that's it. The fish don't seem to mine all that much. The only problem I'm having with it so far is that with it being right at the surface, there are some dead water spots that are getting BGA. I probably need to do some more water changes.

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#3 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 04:36 PM

this is what i came up with to hold it underwater... i put a dowel rod going from the crossbar in the top of the tank to the driftwood, and the dowel rod is holding the wood underwater.

it looks a little tacky but it is working.

this just seemed easier than trying to weight this down with rocks, as i'm sure it would take many pounds of rocks to hold this bad boy down.

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#4 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 05:17 PM

this is what i came up with to hold it underwater... i put a dowel rod going from the crossbar in the top of the tank to the driftwood, and the dowel rod is holding the wood underwater.

it looks a little tacky but it is working.

this just seemed easier than trying to weight this down with rocks, as i'm sure it would take many pounds of rocks to hold this bad boy down.

How about a few large rocks tied to it with clear mono fishing line?

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#5 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 05:34 PM

i don't know if i have any rocks that will be heavy enough! maybe i'll try and tie some rocks on there next time i change water.

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#6 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 05:39 PM

Another thought since the dowel rod is working, is to paint a dowel to match the background that will make it less noticable.

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#7 Guest_schambers_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 05:42 PM

Wow, that's a great piece of wood. I would look for a branch to replace the dowel with.

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#8 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 06:03 PM

i thought about painting it to make it less noticeable, but i don't have any aquarium-safe paint, and i wasn't sure if spraypaint would be harmful.

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#9 Guest_catfish_hunter_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 07:57 PM

That is a cool centerpiece of wood, very naturalistic. My driftwood was Mopani wood, from Africa I believe, and it sinks like a rock but at the cost of just pumping a ton of tanin into your tank. I used my dishwasher without soap and a few good soakings in really hot water to surmount this minor difficulty. I put the whole piece in and one day I noticed it looked too big for the tank, so I took it out of the tank, dried it off and broke it over my knee into two pieces, one for my kingsnake and one for my fish.

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#10 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 08:36 PM

yeah i personally think that mopani stuff is just ugly. doesn't look natural to me. and its expensive!

this is a piece of pine i found right on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay. i have a piece of pine driftwood from the same area in my 5 gallon tank and i boiled it for several hours, and then let it soak for 24 hours in that pot of warm water (after i turned the stove off) and it sunk no problem. it has been in that tank for almost a month and i haven't noticed any change in water color.

this big piece of driftwood made my water kind of hazy but i think that is because it was sitting in a silt-filled pond for a month and a half, and the water that has soaked into it is not clear water.

when i got the wood out of the pond, i pulled a leech off the wood. i was gonna keep it in my bucket to feed to my fish but it somehow escaped. after i put the wood in my tank, another leech came crawling out of the wood. my fish never ate it though, its still in my tank attached to the wood.

thanks for the compliments!

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#11 Guest_catfish_hunter_*

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Posted 28 November 2009 - 10:49 AM

Most Mopani looks just weird to me because it is marbled yellow and brown, but mine is the variety that is all chocolate brown, so it looks pretty cool. Were the leeches brown or see-through? Either way your fish will snap them up greedily.

Edited by catfish_hunter, 28 November 2009 - 10:50 AM.

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#12 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 28 November 2009 - 11:38 AM

the leeches were dark olive on top and dark orange on bottom, with black spots on the olive side.

here are some that were on my waders:
Posted Image

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#13 Guest_panfisherteen_*

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Posted 28 November 2009 - 11:43 AM

hopefully your bluegill will eat that leech, but i bet "P-seed1" will grab it beofre the bluegill mans up and tries to :tongue:

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#14 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 28 November 2009 - 05:39 PM

the leeches were dark olive on top and dark orange on bottom, with black spots on the olive side.

Those are the medicinal leech that is used in some hospitals to increase blood circulation after re-atacment surgery (dor say a severed digit). How's that for an interesting native?

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#15 Guest_jrhodo_*

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Posted 28 November 2009 - 07:12 PM

The wood in my aquarium is cemented to rocks with aquarium silicon. It works way better than I thought it would. The wood has to be dry on the outside and it takes 48 hours for the silicone to set, but worth it.

http://i914.photobuc...45/tanks067.jpg

Edited by jrhodo, 28 November 2009 - 07:20 PM.

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#16 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 28 November 2009 - 07:18 PM

hmm i didn't know these were the type hospitals used. do you know what species these leeches are? there are also tiny brown ones in the creek.

i got java moss for my driftwood! :biggrin:

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#17 Guest_catfish_hunter_*

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Posted 28 November 2009 - 10:22 PM

Awesome look on the wood, your fish must be digging the new furniture!

Edited by catfish_hunter, 28 November 2009 - 10:26 PM.

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#18 Guest_jblaylock_*

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Posted 30 November 2009 - 11:42 AM

I attached a large peice of plexiglass to the bottom of my driftwood and buried it under the gravel. In your case, you'd need some really thick plexiglass and it would need to be a big peice. You could also attach it to a steel plate and bury that under the gravel. Just make sure you use stainless steel or paint regular metal. I think burying is the best way to deal with floating driftwood, just my .02