[MelMac]

I set up a new tank & put a piece of drift wood in yesterday after boiling it & soaking it & brushing it & then doing it all over again a couple more time. Anyhow now there's short thread like pieces of the wood floating around in the tank ... is this normal?? I brushed it & broke off any easily broken pieces ... boiled it a few times, soaked it for quite a while & brushed it again. It was still floating after a few days of soaking so I tied a rock to it.
Why would there be like 1" pieces of thread like(very thin strips) of wood floating around?
Thanks

 

[j03yYunG]

Give it a few weeks and it'll sink. Hold it down with a rock/stone until than. It took my new driftwood ~1 month to sink on it's own.

 

[MelMac]

Thanks

 

[H2Ogal]

Floating is normal for a lot of woods ... but floating thread-like pieces of wood are not. When dry, is the wood hard enough so you cannot dent it with your fingernail? If it's soft enough to scrape/dent when dry, it's may not be a good choice for a tank as it will break down way too fast. (All wood is broken down over time, especially with snails/shrimp in the tank. But good, hard wood will take much longer.)

 

[PlantedRich]

The floating is normal. The strips are not. Let me check a few things. Is this wood that still has bark that might be coming off? How dry /old is the wood? New wood might have a thin layer just under the bark which might come off in strips. Kind of guessing at what it might be.
Can you describe the wood a bit more. Like size, how old and if you happen to know, what type wood.

 

[lochaber]

A pic might help as well.

But the way you describe it, it sounds more like inner bark fibers then the actual wood itself. Can't really say for certain though.

If it is bark fibers, running it through a couple soak/dry cycles might help loosen/remove them. Or maybe really thorough scrubbing.

 

[MelMac]

No, no bark ... it's not as bad. It was fibers but I think bugs chewed at it before I got it. It was mostly submerged when I found it in river, but river wasn't very deep. I had soaked it a lot (days) before I put it in there. Do not know what kind of wood. Fish are doing fine. So I'm just going to leave it for now.
Thanks