Posted by kherman on March 19, 2003 at 07:23:12:
In Reply to: Adding Driftwood posted by ledybug on March 17, 2003 at 17:43:37:
>> I have this beautiful piece of driftwood I'd
>> like to add to my tank. What are the pros and
>> cons of adding driftwood to a freshwater tank?
>> Is there a particular way you need to clean it
>> before adding it to the tank? How do you keep
>> it from floating?
Before adding driftwood, you have to cure it (clean it). Instead of explaining it here, I suggest you go to google and do a search for 'cure driftwood' and/or 'curing driftood'. Of, course, do the search without the apostrphies (')
I've never cured driftwood, but it is very important that you cure it properly.
Driftwood tends to lower the Ph of a tank (or does it raise it? I forget).
To keep it from floating, you can do seeveral things. if it's a hollow pice of driftwood, add stone to the center to add weight. You could tie the driftwood to a piece of plexiglass and burry the piece of plexiglass with rock/sand/etc as to keep the piece of driftwood from floating.
Once the driftwood is water logged, it should remain sinked. I htink the number tossed around for the time to take a piece to get water logged is 2 weeks.
