i know many people believe that australias pricing for fish is way over the top. but the driftwood i promise you is worse. pet shops here sell it for $55-75. for a decent size bit. one sells it over a 100dollars for african driftwood which is huge and looks awesome.

my point is that is there a way of getting your own. theres a large blok of land next to be with heeps of dying trees, i saw a good looking bit so i put it in a bucket of water for 3 days, then scrubed it with a tooth brush for ages so it was clean.
at the moment its in the sun. is there anything i should treat the wood with or is it fine to put in the tank as it is.

btw its a bit of dead eucalyptus tree(hardwood)

Is this driftwood for form or function? Do you want a display piece or is it for the Bristlenose tank you were talking about before?

My pieces for the BN tank/s were about $8 each if i remember right. I got these because they were 100 percent safe for aquarium use. One was quite big aswell.

I know people source their own wood sometimes from rivers/lakes (which is supposed to be illegal in Aus )

Im not totally convinced a eucalypt branch would be safe, I reckon the oils from the wood could be an issue.

Apart from that I have heard boiling wood is a good way to kill any nasties living in and on the branch.

I personally wouldn't use it but I don't have enough info to pursuade you not to.

imo it's not worth the risk.
the wood may contaminate the water and pose a threat on you fish.
better to look for some secondhand piece that is 100% aquarium safe.
i found the big piece in my tank, for 25 euros, at a second hand site.
I even found it in my hometown!

OMG drift wood here is actually really picked up from the river, it used to cost nothing last time while I went to the place where they selling sand and filter of the mini gravel and drift wood. for me it's just a piece of wood from the river, most of them are quite solid and most are left over trees root area.

I have always collected my own drift wood. I usually get it from a river. I look for a piece that is well water logged so it sinks. I hose it off than give it a real mild bleach bath, say 1 part to 1000. I let it soak a couple of days than rinse it off and its good to go.
I collected a nice piece from the coast recently which proved a bit too buoyant so I drilled out some cores underneath and filled these with gravel. I put silicon over the holes to form a plug. Its in my Oscar tank now. I will post some pics when I work out how.

thanks, i wont risk using it, i wouldnt want the oils of the branch to contaminate the water, theres a website below

thegreenscorpion.com.au/shopshow.toy?catnid=51219

do you think this driftwood will be ok, also i like that desert wood.

i can easily order stuff from this site

awesome tank noddy, i went to try and get that background for my oscar tank but it was $32 a foot. iit does look really nice though.

albinotiger wrote:


Would'nt it be safe to say the oils are in the leaves, not the timber?
If you pick a piece thats been sitting in water for perhaps years, all the oils and most of the tannins would have bleached out.

this timber has been on a block, next door, i have no idea how old or new it is, there is still sap and oils inside the wood, i think.

it would be just as easy ordering some for $6.

yea aus-car its for bn's but im planning to get the would a few weeks before the fish.

Noddy give me your tank

Very nice set up Nod luv the background

Gaz

i have many lakes and rivers around where I live. I found some branches that had been waterlogged in the water for many years and ended up drying out for years in a part of the lake where the water level dropped. This wood worked well in my tank for quite some time. I am confident that any negative influences were washed out and then baked out from the sun.

Just have to be careful about where you get the wood and how it was treated.