# Fake Driftwood



## Billb (Mar 18, 2006)

I notice that most of you use real driftwood. Do any of you use fake driftwood? Its easier to get and some of it looks alright. Just wondering.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

> and some of it looks alright.


 I can't agree with you here. I know someone who had some in a tank once. 6 months later it looked like crap. Of course, each to their own.


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## Lauren (Mar 18, 2006)

I have never used fake driftwood myself. Real driftwood is just too nice and natural to ever try the fake stuff.


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Billb said:


> I notice that most of you use real driftwood. Do any of you use fake driftwood? Its easier to get and some of it looks alright. Just wondering.


You might want to consider plastic fish as well. But they are notoriously difficult to breed.

Real fish=> real wood.

Regards, 
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com


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## acbaldwin (Nov 3, 2005)

Fake driftwood will get you nothing but a big, resounding "meh".
I started off with the fake driftwood, but a decent realistic piece (from petsmart) costs more than the real stuff!
But, if you've got your reasons, you can have my old one.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Tom beat me to what I wanted to say. I did see some rather nice pieces with plastic fluorescent orange and hot pink plants attached to them.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

You guys are overreacting to the "fake" part of fake driftwood. I have seen some that looks pretty good too, and if you are covering it with moss or anubias you can't see much of it in the tank anyway. I found reasonably priced pieces of real wood at my LFS, but if I hadn't I would have used the fake. At least it wouldn't add tannins to the water, possibly messing up the measurement of CO2. As far as plastic fish goes, our experts, like Tom are supposed to tell us how to breed them, not just point out the difficulty.


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## 247Plants (Mar 23, 2006)

lol @ hoppy....


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Yeah, but if you're going to all the trouble of keeping real plants alive, why on earth would you want to bother with fake driftwood? Honestly.


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## Lauren (Mar 18, 2006)

putting boiling water on driftwood solves the tannin problem.


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## Salt (Apr 5, 2005)

I saw some awesome tanks in a local store recently with really nice looking driftwood. I asked the guy where he got it, and he said it was fake. I couldn't believe it. It was resin, and I couldn't believe how real it looked.

There's bad fake driftwood and good fake driftwood.

Of course everyone is going to say fake driftwood looks bad. Because it's only bad fake driftwood that people will notice as fake.


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## Gumby (Aug 1, 2005)

Salt said:


> I saw some awesome tanks in a local store recently with really nice looking driftwood. I asked the guy where he got it, and he said it was fake. I couldn't believe it. It was resin, and I couldn't believe how real it looked.
> 
> There's bad fake driftwood and good fake driftwood.
> 
> Of course everyone is going to say fake driftwood looks bad. Because it's only bad fake driftwood that people will notice as fake.


Yeah, Salt has the key. If you MUST go with driftwood, go with the resin cast stuff. I used to work at a store that had more than it's fair share of fake junk for tanks. Some of the resin casted stuff looked so realistic I had trouble telling it from the real stuff.

If you get the "bad" fake driftwood, most of the time the paint that makes it look semi-realistic peels off within a year anyway. Then you're left with a black piece of plastic that looks like a giant turd.


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

hoppycalif said:


> You guys are overreacting to the "fake" part of fake driftwood. I have seen some that looks pretty good too, and if you are covering it with moss or anubias you can't see much of it in the tank anyway. As far as plastic fish goes, our experts, like Tom are supposed to tell us how to breed them, not just point out the difficulty.


There's some nice looking plastic fish, they don't hide either.
The secrets of breeding them involve a trip down to TAP plastics....
Good thing is you can't kill them with CO2.

Plastic plants are also pretty tough to grow.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Salt said:


> There's bad fake driftwood and good fake driftwood.
> 
> Of course everyone is going to say fake driftwood looks bad. Because it's only bad fake driftwood that people will notice as fake.


Well, I can say the same thing about plastic plants also, I've even threaten to enter some in a competition as real plants to prove the point.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## Billb (Mar 18, 2006)

Id have to say thats the first time Ive seen people over react on this forum, but oh well. I was talking about the higher qualit resin driftwood. A store close to me has a ton of dif sizes and styles. No theres no plants or anything like that attached to them. I have been looking all over for decent driftwood around here. The problem with ordering them is that you cant really tell how they look from a picture. You need to hold them.


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## carpguy (Feb 3, 2006)

I think a lot of the 'overreacting' is tongue in cheek (I'm still trying to reconcile myself to the idea that Tom Barr isn't crotchety).

On the inevitable other hand, I think most planted folk tend towards natural materials, at least as much as possible.

If you can't find natural driftwood you like and you can find some high quality resin stuff you're happy with, who are we to say? I figured out what I wanted and I went and got it. I happened to get it from a forest. To each their own.


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