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I have not been able to find a single good source of information for different types of wood that are safe for aquariums.

I have wood-eaters and non wood eating L-numbers. What kinds of wood native to the American midwest can I use and do they need to be treated (other than sinking?)

I have also seen some incredible discus display tanks with awesome wood arrangements that are likely some kind of tree root. The one tank at Discus Hans just about took my breath away. Does anyone know what kind of wood that is?

Any advice would be appreciated. I am really enjoying the L numbers and cories

tanks much!

Normally just needs 2 b a hardwood. If u can press ur thumb nail into the wood and leave an impression its probably not a good piece for the tank

Most broadleaf wood is safe, there are relatively few poisonous types of wood. Unfortunately I don't know much about US plants, here in Sweden some to avoid are rhododendron, yew (Taxus), and chestnut (Juglans and Aesculus).

FWIW: Commonly used local wood is oak (Quercus), beech (Fagus), alder (Alnus), birch (Betula), lilac (Syringa), maple (Acer) and willow (Salix). Conifer wood is generally not used unless it's spent a long time in water and lost most of its resin. Softer wood (e.g. alder) is more easily eaten by wood-eating catfish, which may or may not be an advantage to you.

firefish11 wrote:Normally just needs 2 b a hardwood. If u can press ur thumb nail into the wood and leave an impression its probably not a good piece for the tank

So, the technical definition of hardwood is "broadleaved trees" (as opposed to "conifers" with needles), and as Wikipedia says: "Hardwoods are not necessarily harder than softwoods. In both groups there is an enormous variation in actual wood hardness, with the range in density in hardwoods completely including that of softwoods; some hardwoods (e.g. balsa) are softer than most softwoods, while yew is an example of a hard softwood0."

I have used apple and cherry wood as well as a few different of the ones Mike mentions.

--
Mats

MatsP wrote:"Hardwoods are not necessarily harder than softwoods"

That's part of the reason why I avoid the terms softwood/hardwood; in addition I'm also unsure if the terms softwood/hardwood are used outside the US.

As always Mats makes a good point, sorry should have been more specific. Mopani and Malaysian are easy to find at most lfs. I've used stuff out of the yard before couldn't really say what it is but if u can dent it I've found it doesn't last long.

I use mangrove wood that I collect and soak for long periods of time. It is usually riddled with marine borer holes and is physically "soft". It does put quite a bit of tannin in the water but my panaques love to chew right into it and all my other cats graze off it quite a bit.

good information, please keep it coming.....

Hi I found this piece of Sumatran Driftwood, with a little help of a mate that works in my not so LFS, I liked it so much I had a tank built round it!

does anyone know of which roots or wood that looks like wood?? I am thinking long and wavy as opposed to most wood found for aquariums--

JS

Matt30 wrote:Hi I found this piece of Sumatran Driftwood, with a little help of a mate that works in my not so LFS, I liked it so much I had a tank built round it!

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Hey Matt30, That's real dedication! If you ever decide to put fish in with your piece of wood, you're going to have so much fun if you decide to net them again!

I use fruit tree wood and fallen branches from oak and beech, all seem fine.

Apart from purpose bought bogwood/mopani etc i use beech branches - fresh off the tree at times. Occasionally if i'm beachcombing i can find a nice piece of wood that has been well weathered: probably immersed in saltwater for an age then dried in the sun and wind.

When farmers are removing hedges etc you can occasionally find amazing root pieces although these need a lot of cleaning or where we in the UK have canals with adjacent trees like birch, at low water clumps of wispy root mass can be collected.

For some breath-taking wood pieces in the US, check out the below links (manzanita wood). My fish club did a group buy 1.5 years ago and bought a bunch (maybe your fish club can do a group buy).

http://manzanita.com/aqwood.htm
http://manzanita.com/stumps/page1/page1.htm

jp11biod wrote:does anyone know of which roots or wood that looks like wood?? I am thinking long and wavy as opposed to most wood found for aquariums--

JS

I think I recall seeing grape-vine wood/burls as being "long and wavy." Again, you can also get this type of wood with manzanita:
http://manzanita.com/staffs.htm
http://manzanita.com/sticks2.htm

The commonly available "Malaysian" bog wood works well with Panaque species.
All the on line fish supplies vendors stock it and the small pieces are cheap which makes them an affordable sacrificial "food wood" for Panaque spp. I have had L204 demolish them within just a few years.
They do leach tannins excessively for months so you may want to use activated carbon awhile to keep the water clear unless you don't mind a strong water tint for the first several months.
I also collect natice deciduous shrubbery root drift wood from local rivers which is accepted well by Panaque spp
I haven't kept any Panaque since I sold my dozen adult L204 several years ago and I do not miss their messiness.

Hi all,
You want soft, partially rotted wood as a food for Panaque spp., as well as harder structural wood for resting places etc. This finding came from Dr Donovan German's work with Panaque spp. This is a quote (from an email from Dr German:

...... So, just to summarize what I think these fish are doing… the wood-eating catfishes dig into decaying wood and efficiently digest wood degradation products that environmental microbes are making available as they degrade wood. The fish also have elevated digestive enzyme activities (e.g., N-acetyl-b-D-glucosaminidase) suggestive that they digest fungi within the wood matrix. Thus, they likely get “energy” from the degraded wood. The stable isotopic signatures (carbon and nitrogen) of wild-caught wood-eating catfishes certainly suggest that they get their protein from fungi and amorphous detritus, and we find periphyton and amorphous detritus in their guts (in addition to the wood; see the “inside the guts” paper where I do a detailed gut content analysis of wild-caught fish). Basically, the fish have to get their nitrogen from somewhere other than the wood detritus (there isn’t much N in wood anyway). The fish certainly ingest wood, they just don’t use the same “pathway” to obtain energy from it as a termite. Rather than harbouring an endosymbiotic community, they let the microbes in the environment do the work for them. This may be a function of living in an aquatic environment

More details here:
<http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 14&t=32382>

cheers Darrel