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what twigs can I use? what leaves can I use?

756 views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  PlantedRich 
#1 ·
#3 ·
I can't speak to the leaves but the wood is a familiar subject that I feel I can speak about. Not tannin if the color is part of what you want but for good wood that holds up, I do look for certain points.
My wood for tanks has to be totally dry before I consider it as I do not want to deal with colors. I find that I can avoid tannin totally if the wood is really dry. Not like dead last year but totally dry all the way through!
That also leads me to believe that the cellulose portion of wood is not very likely to be a problem other than the physical property of being hard. Not speaking of softwoods versus hardwood as a woodworker might but hard to the touch.
I often find cedar and juniper are woods that I can use, even though they are known in the hobby as dangerous. I feel it is not the wood itself but the sap/moisture/ tannin part of the wood which gives us trouble. Cedar may have it's bad reputation for tank use due to it's natural way of holing sap much longer than many woods. But it does eventually dry out, just that it takes much longer. I look for wood that feels lighter than other wood for the size as the weight is from moisture. It will be dry all the way through so I cut off one of the thicker parts to take a look inside. Wood dries from outside to inter, so when the wood is almost uniform color, I call it totally dry.
Hard to the touch makes me feel it will last far longer than wood which is no so firm.
This is a piece of really, really old cedar or juniper which I used for a long time with no problem. As I shaped it by cutting the inside out, notice how uniform the color? What type of wood doesn't matter to me as long as it is DRY.
 
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