# how to sink driftwood?



## JRJ (Feb 9, 2005)

Dear folks,

As you can see from the jpeg below, I had to resort to caveman technique to get this piece of driftwood to stay on the bottom. Do any of you have more aesthetic methods in your bag of tricks to get this stump to stay in Davey Jones locker?

-Russ


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## jonathan (Apr 6, 2005)

You have the right idea. That peice of wood is probably dry so it just needs to be soaked for a long time. Over time, it will become water logged and sink and its own. 

The driftwood sold in some stores has a metal brace hidden behind it thats bolted to the wood. The brace has a flat horizontal peice that is burried in your gravel. You could try and make one of those or just be patient for the wood to sink.


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## magicmagni (Aug 19, 2004)

Well sometimes if you leave it in the water long enough it will loose it's buoyancy, boiling it also helps, but other times it won't sink no matter what. After a few weeks if it still floats like a cork or if you are impatient like me then you can try to attach the wood to a base. Plexi or slate works nicely. Put your substrate over the base to hide and to weight it down.


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## EcleckticGirl (Jul 26, 2005)

Using nylon fishline, you can tie several flat-ish rocks to the branches of the driftwood that are going to be down into the substrate. Choose flat rocks so that they are easier to tie to the branches (round surface to round surface doesn't work well). Sink the rocks into the substrate. Disguise the fishline with moss, Java fern or Anubias.

If you want to go the cave man route you can pile a series of smaller moss-covered rocks over the roots in places for an interesting effect. However, I doubt it would work with your large stump unless you already had the branching roots weighted.


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## JRJ (Feb 9, 2005)

Thanks all for the advice.

-Russ


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