Pre-soaked Driftwood from LFS?

[J2d2]

Hi,

My LFS sells pre-soaked driftwood from their tanks. What do you think about buying it pre-soaked?

Besides the risk of hitchhikers, are there any other things to watch out for?

Thanks.

[steven p]

Rotten wood.

[DaveK]

More to the point, do they charge you a lot more for it?

If they do, and your willing to wait, buy the uncured driftwood. It's really not too hard to cure

[Dknight]

I bought presoaked driftwood from my LFS... Same price as the one on the shelf. I took it home and threw it straight in boiling water anyway! Dont need any hitchhikers as you mentioned.

Better safe than sorry

[J2d2]

Originally Posted by DaveK

More to the point, do they charge you a lot more for it?

If they do, and your willing to wait, buy the uncured driftwood. It's really not too hard to cure

Not sure what the average cost of driftwood should be, I have never bought any. But the LFS sells the presoaked for 3-5 for a small and 10 for a medium size piece.

[J2d2]

Originally Posted by Dknight

I bought presoaked driftwood from my LFS... Same price as the one on the shelf. I took it home and threw it straight in boiling water anyway! Dont need any hitchhikers as you mentioned.

Better safe than sorry

Great advice!

[lochaber]

Are you concerned about tannins, waterlogging, or something else?

As to tannins, I can understand wanting to skip the initial heavy leeching phase, although it's generally not harmful, and even beneficial to an extent. I'd just try to keep things in check with some carbon/purigen and frequent partial water changes.

As to waterlogging, a lot of the typical driftwoods are dense enough they can sink with little-no soaking. Even so, I'm a fan of bolting them to slate, not just to keep them from floating, but also to make them a little more stationary. a lot of people use stainless screws, I'm partial to nylon. I've heard of good results with zipties and fishline, and I imagine something like epoxy or gorilla glue would probably work.

I've never bothered, but boiling should accelerate both of these processes (waterlogging and initial heavy leeching).

I think the most important factor is how much you know about / trust your fish store. Do they quarantine new fish, is their stock generally healthy, do they do system-wide dosing of meds/etc., how's the water quality, etc. There is a lot of advice about taking care to not add the bag water when adding new fish to a tank; if anything, I would think adding pre-soaked driftwood would be potentially more risk (unless it was boiled or something twixt pet store and your tank).

[J2d2]

Originally Posted by lochaber

Are you concerned about tannins, waterlogging, or something else?

As to tannins, I can understand wanting to skip the initial heavy leeching phase, although it's generally not harmful, and even beneficial to an extent. I'd just try to keep things in check with some carbon/purigen and frequent partial water changes.

As to waterlogging, a lot of the typical driftwoods are dense enough they can sink with little-no soaking. Even so, I'm a fan of bolting them to slate, not just to keep them from floating, but also to make them a little more stationary. a lot of people use stainless screws, I'm partial to nylon. I've heard of good results with zipties and fishline, and I imagine something like epoxy or gorilla glue would probably work.

I've never bothered, but boiling should accelerate both of these processes (waterlogging and initial heavy leeching).

I think the most important factor is how much you know about / trust your fish store. Do they quarantine new fish, is their stock generally healthy, do they do system-wide dosing of meds/etc., how's the water quality, etc. There is a lot of advice about taking care to not add the bag water when adding new fish to a tank; if anything, I would think adding pre-soaked driftwood would be potentially more risk (unless it was boiled or something twixt pet store and your tank).

I guess I was more concerned about the latter. I do trust my LFS. But I think boiling the drift wood is a good idea just to be safe.

Thanks!

[Option]

I would buy a regular piece and boil it yourself. I would not just rely on what others claim has been done....esp from a LFS.

[Pix4c]

I bought a piece from a member a month ago I still can't get it to sink

[CrypticLifeStyle]

Yeah do it yourself. I don't trust any LFS tank water. Shipments come, and go, and knows really what could be in that water. Just not worth the risk to me. If I were paid a hourly rate to prep the wood at home, it would be cheaper then what it could cost to fix a potential problem. Its smarter, and economical to prep your own.