Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping => General Fishkeeping Chat => Topic started by: Sue on March 01, 2014, 01:38:07 PM
-
Has anyone used red moor wood in their tanks?
I bought a piece this morning which is currently floating in water. How long does it take to sink? Or does it never sink? I've seen pics of tanks with this wood in and it is sitting on the bottom, so I assume it does eventually sink?
-
From what I read on the web (http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=5318) it does sink eventually and you can speed up the process via soaking it in a hot bath or weighting it down with a rock. :)
-
That's good to know. It is in my quarantine tank at the moment with a couple of live plants. Because I have shrimps and snails, I'm running the plants with carbon and Polyfilter to remove any nasty chemicals (insecticide, snail killers etc). I'll see if I can find something that will weight it down.
-
I bought the red moor wood on 1 March. It is now 10 March. The wood is in my quarantine tank (18 x 10 x 10 inches) and it just fits so it's not a big piece. I've been weighting it down with a piece of rock.
I've changed the water twice since I got it, the first time when I moved the plants into the main tank sometime last week (forgotten which day :-[ ) and today. It now stays submerged by itself.
However, I read about this wood getting covered with white slime, and this piece certainly has. The water was very cloudy, which is why I emptied the tank, wiped the slime off the inside of the glass and refilled it. I'll wait a bit longer before putting it in the main tank, see if the slime diminishes. The same site that mentioned the slime also said that some fish will eat it, but I don't know if that applies to any of my fish :-\
-
Maybe there's a way of coating it in a hard resin or something after it's sink able? Not sure what type exactly but something that drys rock hard...
But hey, at least it's sunk :D
-
Just so anyone else buying redmoor wood gets an idea of timescale:
I bought this piece of wood on 1 March. It took a week and a half for it to sink, but then the water started going cloudy. It would be fine for 2 days then get so bad I could hardly see the wood. This happened at every water change. Last week (the 21st) I put a small filter in the tank filled with filter wool, and it hasn't gone cloudy this week, so I put it in the main tank at this morning's water change (28th). It still has that white gooey algae that I've read grows on it but I also read that fish will eat it. I'll have to wait and see if they actually do....
-
Yukky.
I bought a piece of vine wood. It too took about two weeks of being weighted down before it lost its bouyancy, but it's been fine. It didn't stain the water at all and it's not got algae on it. I'm quite pleased with it.
-
The red moor has been staining the water slightly - in the 25 litre QT the brown is barely noticeable after a week so it'll be more dilute = less obvious in the 180 litre tank. I can live with that shade of brown :D
-
I bought a piece of vine wood.
Is that ACTUAL vine wood, Colin? You know, the grapey stuff? Or a fancy name for some other wood?
Obviously, there's rather a lot of that here ;) If it is the same, what do you have to do to it to make it safe for the fishies?
-
The white gooey algae has gone. It's been gone a while, I just forgot to update this thread :-[
The one remaining amano shrimp and the honey gouramis have spent ages nibbling at it. Yes, I have got another pair of gouramis :D
-
Ah! My vine wood is actually Redmoor Vine wood...... whatever that is. Probably not the same as yer actual French Grape Vine Wood.
-
What are used in some countries are the twisted and knotted roots of old grape vines which have been uprooted. I gather they can make some very interesting features. As with all wood, it should be very dead and dried out before going in the tank, leaving it outside for a year or so to weather is recommended.