# Sinking driftwood?



## Teeleton (Jun 8, 2006)

Any tricks for sinking driftwood, or do I just need to be patient? I currently have a large scale "bottle test" going in the tank with a fairly large piece of native driftwood. The wood was about 75-80% covered when it finally left the bottom of the tank. I now have it weighted down, but I'm wondering how long if ever it will stop trying to float out of the tank. There's nothing else in the tank with it, and went ahead and hooked up the canister filter with some charcoal in it just to keep the water moving and soak up any nastiness it might leech. Not that it's going to kill anything in an empty tank.

Anyone have any techniques I could use to help sink it? It's fairly large. It sits on three points, spans the length of my 4' tank, and reaches about 10" off the bottom.

Teeleton


----------



## Minipol (Jul 4, 2006)

Let it soak into water until it sinks.
You can also use rock to weigh it down
Or use another piece of driftwood to do the same


----------



## chadly (Dec 19, 2005)

a quick solution is to find a piece of slate or something and screw it to it. IME large driftwood will take a while to soak if it's from the woods or a body of water. the stuff you buy is ready to sink.


----------



## bpimm (Jun 12, 2006)

I drill a hole in a piece of slate and use a stainless steel screw, I'm not patient enough to wait.

Brian


----------



## Teeleton (Jun 8, 2006)

Reached in the tank, and lifted the weight off of the driftwood tonight to see how it was doing, and its bouyancy seem to be greatly reduced. Shouldn't be too much longer I don't think. Guess I better get moving on building the stand. 

EDIT: n/m. Apparantly it was just swollen a bit and wedged in the tank. Once it came loose, it was quite bouyant again. :doubt:

Teeleton


----------



## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

If you boil it for 3-4 hours the wood will saturate with water and most of the tannins will be released. It should sink much more easily after boiling, though you could always tie it to a rock as everyone else suggested.

A word of caution: Boiling wood will stain metal pots, use pots coated with non-stick bottoms.


----------



## Teeleton (Jun 8, 2006)

As soon as I find a 4' pot, I might give that a shot.  I have it weighted down right now. It's been submerged for 2 days now I guess. Just gotta wait it out. :noidea:

Teeleton


----------



## Minipol (Jul 4, 2006)

A big piece of drift wood i put in one of my tanks took about a week to be complete non bouyant


----------



## Apaa (Jul 21, 2006)

I used to obtain large quantities of driftwood for the aquarium trade. One buyer wanted it on a piece of slate so that it could be used in terrariums for snakes and what not. 

I went and bought a big pack of stainless steel screws with the square drive head 1 1/2 inches long. It has a self tapping tip. I used an 18 volt cordless drill to attacht he driftwood to the slate. It takes about 2 seconds to go through most slate and it doesnt break the slate if you dont put excessive force on the slate. Once through the slate put the wood on the screw and zip it into the slate. Anything will sink with a big ebough piece of slate on it.


----------



## Teeleton (Jun 8, 2006)

I'm trying to avoid using slate, since the piece sits on three points, so it would be difficult to screw it to some slate, and hide the screws. Besides, I want as much usable substrate as possible, and not necessarily large pieces of slate under the gravel.

All this input is great, though. I'm sure others may find these other methods useful.

Teeelton


----------



## bpimm (Jun 12, 2006)

I have used pieces of doweling to wedge the driftwood down until it sinks. depending on the tank and wood location. doesn't work in a rimless tank. 

just cut the dowel and wedge it under the tank lip down to the driftwood in several places. it took a piece of wood in my 100 Gal almost 3 Months to sink fully. this way you can enjoy it sooner, the dowel's are hardly noticeable.


----------



## Teeleton (Jun 8, 2006)

So today I decided to figure out exactly how much weight I'd need to add to the wood to force it to sink. I drained out some of the water, and removed the wood to get a baseline water level. Then floated the wood in the water and got a floating water level. Then I submerged the wood and got the final level. Then I took the difference between the 2nd and 3rd marks, computed how much displaced water was between the 2 marks, and finally how much that water weighs. 5.3lbs.  Some quick work with a small scale tells me that's almost exactly $9 worth of pennies.

So much for that idea.  Back to waiting it out...

Teeleton


----------



## Minipol (Jul 4, 2006)

Hehe, nice calculation method though !


----------



## bpimm (Jun 12, 2006)

put the slate at the bottom of the tank and use some nylon spacers (available at good hardware stores) to hold the wood up the thickness of your substrate.


----------



## Teeleton (Jun 8, 2006)

I have to admit. I haven't really messed with it since my last post, but I checked it tonight, and the wood is no longer bouyant. All weight has been removed. I'll have to see if I can get a pic of the wood that I used. I think it's oak. It was basically a fallen limb that had a couple interesting twists in it.

Teeleton


----------



## medachef (Sep 21, 2006)

*my piece of drift wood.*

so how long did it take to fully sink?? Just bought a piece of grapewood and i boiled it for a little bit. (it's kinda hard since i have an electric stove that takes forever to heat up a 3 gallon stockpot). Boiled it for about an hour each side because i couldn't fit all in at once. i may just slate it down. i may have the patience to let the grass grow, but not for the wood to sink.


----------



## Teeleton (Jun 8, 2006)

Somewhere between 11 days and 2 months. :?

Teeleton


----------



## onemyndseye (May 12, 2006)

This may be WAAY off the wall but it was a passing thought I had while reading this thread.

I wonder what would happen if you exposed wood to some sort of surfactant like the ones found in some potting soils as "wetting agents" before soaking. 

"....Soil wetters help to overcome the effects of waxy organic coatings on the surface of the soil and the surface of organic matter so allowing the water to penetrate and be absorbed....."

It seems like this may help penetrate the protective oils and parafins in wood as well. *shrug*

Just a thought 
-Justin
One Mynds Eye


----------



## Sammie7 (Oct 3, 2006)

To help clean the wood and to help it sink you could pour the boiling water on it if the wood's too big to fit in a pot.


----------

