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Driftwood collecting day (pic heavy)

974 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  Flgatorguy
Well I decided to go down to my property and do a bit of driftwood collecting. If it can be called driftwood.

Following pictures are all Bald Cypress from Florida. Fresh out of the swamp. Cell phone pics. No trees were harmed in the making of this post.

Going to soak/dry them out for awhile but I should get some real nice pieces out of it all.

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Girlfriend had a great idea. To sell the left over pieces. Even after setting the 75g up that we are getting, we will have many pieces left over.

Should I remake this post in the buy/sell forum? Or could a mod possibly move it?
Good looking driftwood score. Oh, and GO GATORS!
Nice find! What are the guidelines to collecting driftwood? I assume you cant just pick up any random piece of wood, right?
Try and find well-weathered pieces. Stuff that's either been sitting in water for a while, or at least been exposed to the elements quite a while if it's not in a body of water.

Avoid stuff that has a strong odor, or visible sap/resin.
My guidelines were pretty simple.

While our water levels are low, walk through the swamp.

Pick up, dig up, yank out any piece of wood that will be big enough for an aquarium. I left many many small chunks behind.

Everything I found was either still under water, or just sticking out of the mud/muck. Grabbed the shovel and went to work.

The three larger, redish looking pieces were quite a find to me. Started out by pulling a smallish piece that was maybe 6 or 7 inches out of the muck. Realizing then that there was another much larger piece there that showed itself after yanking the first piece out. So now the shovel was needed. About 15 minutes later I have three pretty awesome looking red colored/weathered pieces.

A bit of back story....

I have a bit of property that backs up to a 12,000 acre preserve. It's become more of a recreational place but it's still a nice place to be able to go to. Palmetto flats, pine trees, and cypress heads (aka a swamp). Tons of area to go gathering for driftwood and native aquatic plants, fish, and inverts.... Grass/ghost/glass shrimp a plenty.

As for other guidelines....

I know they're certain types of wood you do not want to use in aquariums. Please don't quote this but, I believe walnut/pecan trees along with other trees have some toxin in them that is harmful to fish, possibly even the plants themselves. But it's been many years since I've seen that information. I imagine a good ole google search would be a wealth of info for both you and I lol.
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