Can I use wood from the creek & are PVC caves safe?

I was just 4-wheeling when I fould this peace of drift wood in the creek. I would like to know if its possible to clean it off and sink it in my fish tank. also are those PVC caves a good idea when you have all kinds of barbs? oh ya and if I was to get a new tank what would be a good size to go to (my tank now is 10 gallons). In the tank I would like to have a bubble wall in the back would that be hard to do? ??? ??? ???

 

you have to soak the drift wood in a bucket of water for a month when the water turns brown you change the water. The PVC caves should be ok for the barbs. I also would upgrade to a 55 gallon or larger.

 

do I add my normal fish chemicals to the bucket water too?

 

I've never used driftwood found in nature, but if I were going to, I'd boil it a lot and probably disinfect it with some proper medium (in case it has some chemicals it it - you never know with today's polluted environment). But I don't know what the proper medium would be. Not sure, but I think I heard on Fish Lore that bleach would do. But I personally would be afraid to use bleach because wood is a very porous material and that means it can absorb a lot of bleach in. God forbid that bleach leaked into the tank with fish!

If you can afford, there is a much easier solution. Go to your fish store and buy ready-made driftwood. For a 10 gallon tank, you don't need a large piece, and small pieces of driftwood should not be expensive. If you buy driftwood from the store, even if it's ready, you should still boil and soak it until it stops leaching tannins (i.e. until it stops staining your water brown/orange). Another good reason to boil driftwood is that the tannins can lower your tank pH a lot, which may be a shock to fish. If you boil it, it won't have any tannins left and therefore won't affect your pH. Good luck

P.S.

do I add my normal fish chemicals to the bucket water too?

What do you mean by your "normal chemicals"?

 

I'd honestly not risk it.. if you clean it and all as recommended you probably would be ok but still always have a chance of introducing chemicals, etc.. it's easier to buy it at the store to me than risk 'nature' -- this driftwood is good:

 

ok I will just buy a peice then

my mom can put the peice I found in her flower bed

 

yeah hate to waste all that money and have your tank come crashing down.

 

yeah hate to waste all that money and have your tank come crashing down.

that would suck SOOOO bad

 

good call.. it is tempting to use nature freebies tho.