# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Treating Driftwood



## HitATree (Jun 25, 2003)

Anyone has experiance treating driftwood for bugs and chemicals? Just found multiple pieces but they have bugs in them which i need to get rid of. Will a simple water/bleach dunking do the trick or can i use a chemical to drive them out?


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## HitATree (Jun 25, 2003)

Anyone has experiance treating driftwood for bugs and chemicals? Just found multiple pieces but they have bugs in them which i need to get rid of. Will a simple water/bleach dunking do the trick or can i use a chemical to drive them out?


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## mm12463 (Mar 5, 2004)

I don't know if I would use bleach. It could abosrb into the wood and cause problems in the tank even with a good rinse.

I just got some driftwood over Xmas and boiled mine for an hour or so in water. Course if you have a large piece you might need to rotate it around every so often to get each end and what not.

That should kill the bugs and boil out any other things.

Mike
http://fish.silver-fox.us


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## Rex Grigg (Jan 22, 2004)

If it's dry wood and has bugs then I would not use it in the tank. The bugs are eating and/or living in the softer portions of the wood that are going to decay in your tank and cause problems.

The whole driftwood idea really makes me wonder. If you go back and read aquarium books very few of the refer to driftwood. The most common thing is bog wood. Wood that has been submerged for a number of years in water and all the soft parts are decayed and what is left is the very hard center parts of the wood. Also with driftwood you never know what kind of wood it is/was. Here in the Pacific NW you can pretty much guess that 90% of all driftwood is going to be softwood, pine, fir, that sort of thing. Just the kinds of wood you don't want in your tank.

It's called driftwood because it freaking drifts with the currents or waves. That means it floats. It means you might not ever be able to get it to sink.










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## jackyjacky (Jan 2, 2004)

this may be a stupid question... why dun we want NW pacific driftwood? If they do sink... what are the other problems?


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## Hanzo (Mar 9, 2004)

I'm doing a small project now using large juniper roots and branches that I collected this weekend. Time will tell if they will just rott or cause any other problem. But people used to bonsai know that juniper wood are the best to stand up against the elemenst. It look great btw


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## Rex Grigg (Jan 22, 2004)

The reason you want to stay away from driftwood collected in the PNW is that the vast majority of it is going to be either pine or fir. And neither one is good in the aquarium. The saps are toxic, the woods are soft and will more than likely decay.










American by birth, Marine by the grace of God! This post spell checked with IESpell available at http://www.iespell.com

See my Profile for tank details.

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## james_uk (Mar 20, 2003)

If it's anything like Bog wood then I would just soak it in boiling water.


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