Sealing driftwood with Poly?

[seastaar88]

I just wanted to verify that it's aquarium-safe to use clear polyurothene from the hardware store to seal a piece of driftwood. *thumbsup2

 

[Lotus]

I don't think it's possible to fully seal it. It's so porous, that water will get in somehow, then the polyeurethane will start flaking off.

 

[seastaar88]

it doesn't need to be *fully* sealed. there are just two areas that are a little soft and crumbly. i wanted to try to prevent bits of wood to flake off in those spots. besdies those areas, the rest of the wood is hard and smooth. would silicone be a better option to harden those areas?

 

[Pure]

The poly will work just make sure it is 100% dry before putting it in the tank. On a side note, if you have any wood eating fish like plecos sealing the wood with poly or anything else may cause them to ingest some of it. So keep that in mind.

 

[seastaar88]

thanks for the tip, pure. currently i do not have wood-eating fish in my natives tank.

 

[wfdfirefighter]

Stocking from the wild

I used to have a tank in my office that i stocked with fish caught from the Hudson River. Over the years the tank held everything from bluegills to punkinseeds to yellow and white perch and even a couple of small striped bass for a while. Feeding was expensive!

 

[seastaar88]

what the heck were you feeding with to make it expensive!? i've always fed with frozen foods, flake and freeze dried foods. live foods are treats.

what happened to the office tank? do you no longer keep natives?

 

[wfdfirefighter]

Striped Bass want live food and copious quantities of it! I am no longer in that office so i took down the tank and released everyone back to the river.

 

[seastaar88]

i've never kept stripers.. i dont think i'd want to anyways. so they wouldnt accept any sort of frozen/freeze dried foods? what a pain!

 

[Grumpy_Marine]

I always scrub my driftwood prior to putting in tank, i use a toothbrush (wifes...lol j/k) and also a scrub brush. The soft spots get scrubbed away giving the wood a more worn out look to it, i will take picture of the piece i am working on tonight

 

[wfdfirefighter]

another issue with the stripers is that they are a Federally protected game fish that has to be 18 inches to keep. Mine were much smaller thus illegal to have.

 

[Plee_cO]

yeh
dude that live on my street had a pleco
"had"
used poly
woke up to a dead fish
not cool

 

[seastaar88]

plee_co-- i don't keep plecos. i dont like them. so i dont have to worry about that! hehehe

grumpy-- i did scrub the hell out of it, but there was one area that i just couldnt completly clear. i ended up using silicone over the soft, questionable areas.. but then i ended up cutting the piece into two and i'm only using one piece without that spot. i do need to still silicone it to some slate so i can position it the way i want it.

another issue with the stripers is that they are a Federally protected game fish that has to be 18 inches to keep. Mine were much smaller thus illegal to have.

yeah i know! ive kept two white perch (2") in the past, another species with a size requirement...!