'Root' Driftwood from a Stafford Store

[japes]

Hey guys,

Before you read this thread:

This relates to driftwood purchased from a certain store on Stafford Rd, if you have purchased any of this wood and have had similar or completely different success or issues with it, please post your experiences.

Approximately 9 months ago, and just recently as well I've purchased some very aesthetically pleasing tangly, 'root'y pieces of driftwood from a store in Stafford - I don't want to name this store even though it's not a direct degradation of them, but rather one of the products they sell - I can't recall the brand name but I'll ring tomorrow and find out. They stock a lot of this wood at good prices.

This wood is a very nice looking product but we believe it to be the root system of grape trees, which are possibly saturated in all sorts of anti-insect chemicals, etc. I'm not a farmer, but I imagine spraying goes on.

I'll discuss what issues I had in chronological order as it's reasonably extensive.

Here's a photograph of the first piece of wood I purchased from the store. This piece was scalded in hot water for a couple of hours and introduced to the tank.

I'd had problems with Skittish fish before as a result of poisoning, from overdosing Flourish Excel (Another incident where an enthusiast was not so lucky)to try and combat a Hair Algae infestation. This behaviour returned and although I can't recall exactly how long for, the fish were jumpy for at least a couple of months. This isn't "Oh well, I'm going to hide now because that big oaf that feeds me is in front of the tank", this is an instant panic attack where the fish clearly don't think, and fly into objects up and down the tank - I'm surprised none of my fish lost eyes or had irreparable damage to fins over the course of these months. I wasn't sure what the cause of this was initially but as it settled down I thought it may have been a water supply issue or just fish being fish. The fish appeared to be healthy, fed and acted fine, although sometimes when I would approach the tank they would freak out and then wouldn't be interested in food.

This original piece was moved from my tank to my 5' community tank without any issues, until I purchased 10 Rummynose Tetra from Aquariums Alive to add to my shoal of 12 (so 22) a few days later, and had 5 die from unknown causes (undamaged), and possibly another 5 die after having their caudal fins completely nipped off. I was curious as to why this happened, Brad stocks good quality fish and they were healthy when purchased, and he had no issues with the fish in store (You're off the hook Brad ). I put it down at the time to being the drive home, which would have been about 2 hours, maybe a bit longer, even though they were packed with oxygen. Purchased more Rummynose from Russ's store and had another one dead in the morning. Put this down to the drive again, but the trend is starting to kick in now.

Fast forward to a month ago (February 22, 2009) and I decided to purchase some more wood. Picked up another large piece for my 4x2x2 that is about 1.5'x1.5' total size, and a smaller piece for my 5' community tank. After soaking the wood for 24 hours in cold water, then for another 5 in scalding hot water, they were introduced to both tanks.

Now the Orange Heads I picked up from Jay are incredibly personable, they will nip at my fingers thinking they're food when I do water changes. They're almost like Oscars, if they see anyone they're up in the top corner wanting food. Within 2-3 days after adding the wood they were scared of absolutely anything that came near the tank, flying recklessly into decor. The third day of having the wood in the tank I had 1 dead C. julii and another dead Rummynose.

The large piece in my 140G tank, pictured above, caused the same reactions. Possibly the next day, or two or three days later, I had a huge fish freak out with fish bouncing off the glass not knowing which ways up. This tank is full of Eartheaters, and I am pedantic about fin condition - adults don't tend to heal fins fantastically so I hate seeing them put themselves in the position to cause great damage to their fins.

Knowing that this was a typical symptom of possible poisoning, all pieces of wood were removed and for 4-5 days I did 35% changes on both tanks. I have had 0 issues in the month since. The surfaces of both tanks were covered in a semi-reflective film which also leads me to believe there are chemicals present in this wood.

As per my bolded section at the top of this reply, has anyone else had success or failure with this product?

Cheers,

japes.

[Braddo]

If it is the store I'm thinking of i have a large piece of the wood from my tank with no issues, I know the owner very well and will chat to him in the next couple of days. So I can find out more details for you if you like.

[Lindo]

Though only remotely similar, I was in a local lfs yesterday and was near some really nice looking knobbly wood and was told in no uncertain terms that it was not for fish tanks but for snake/lizrad enclosures. Unfortunately I did no ask what it was made of.

[rubarb]

I bought the same wood from there too. I have had no problems/repercussions from it that I am aware of. I did have at one stage a 'series of unfortunate events' I'm going to call it where in fact nearly my whole tank was wiped out. I'd just bought a group of 6 cardinals and 10 rummy noses from Petbarn at Morayfield, they're water is usually good and prett closely matching to mine and I got the cardinals for $2.50ea which is almost unheard of at a lfs. Over the course of the next week or so, I lost my entire school of rummynoses, all but 1 of the cardinals, my 3 pairs of apistos, and a peacock gudgen (cute little fellow he was).

My water was spot on, up until that point I had no problems with any unneccessary deaths, I put it down to perhaps the cardinals were stressed out to the max as I bought them the same day the lfs got them in and I think they may have got white spot and I am pretty sure apisto's are extremely prone to the disease.

My blue turks were fine, my bn were fine so no sign of heavy metals in the water. Did some treating with whitespot treatment and a w/c and everything has been fine since. I posted some pics of my tank with the wood in it. It looks terrible at the moment, like an overgrown forest..... I know what I'm doing this weekend.... hahaha.

Cheers,

Matt

[Tim72]

I bought a piece of the same wood from the same store, I had no problems with losing fish, I believe the wood does come from china. The biggest problem that I encountered was keeping on on the floor of the tank. I sank it with a rock for two weeks, when I removed the rock the wood poped up to the top of the tank like a cork, its now anchored with rocks. I soaked it with boiling water before adding it into my aquarium.

[Shorty]

Hi there. i have also purchased the said item for my fish tank some months ago. (approx. 6 months). Had the usual problem of it floating to the surface, so anchored it down with rocks for a couple of months. That gave it time to absorb water & now stays at the bottom on it's own.

As for loss of fish...NONE. The fish love it, as do the banana lillies & anubias that are using it as a host.

Cheers

Shorty

[gingerbeer]

Well much as I hate to agree with Braddo.......

This is the worst of this forum. I started a post about something good about a fish store and within 1 page it became a bitch fest - driven by people who should know better, and here we go again. Same happened on another couple of posts lately. Some people need to grow up a bit.

Japes started with a factual post - then we end up with statements that are likely to cause trouble. My mother said if you haven't gpt spmething good to say about someone keep your mouth shut.

It is not whether I agree or disagree with the opinion about the stores is irrelevant - but please let's try and keep to saying positive about the good stores and celebrate that - these kinds of posts will cause trouble for the forum as a whole.

Grrrrr.

[Braddo]

Thing is this is a post on the driftwood not the store. Simply if you don't like the store don't say anything if you like the store recomend it. Safest way to stay out of trouble.