Drift Wood

[ErinV]

How long should a 30 to 40 pound piece of wood need to soak before it sinks?

I thought that with that weight I would not have to deal with the whole will not sink issue. So much for getting tank planted tonight. 

[Fish Folk]

Two things to consider trying:

(1) If you can buy, or borrow an exceedingly large stock pot, put the wood piece in, and fill 3/4 with water. Boil for awhile . . . maybe an hour . . . Then flip so that the other side gets boiled for as long. Downside: This will produce a lot of smell, and hot  steam.

(2) Take a normal size stock pot, and put heavy rocks in it. Find an unused tub, put wood in, place the pot with rocks on top, and fill tub over the surface of wood with scalding hot water. Drain water and refill with scalding hot water every 12 hrs. Do this for 2x days.

[Randall from Texas]

I've used bricks to weigh peices down, took 3 weeks in the summer sun. Just letting others float in the tanks takes 6 plus.

[Isaac M]

Hello @ErinV, not sure how long it will take for the wood to sink on its own but you could always try tying the piece of wood to some of those stones you have there underneath the wood. It will hold it down and over time it will become water logged, which at that point it will be more dense than the water and sink. That is one serious piece of driftwood though! Haha 

[CT_]

The length of time will be somewhat proportional to the thickness.  Even if you don't plan on weighing it down permanently, be sure weigh it down while it waterlogs.  That'll provide the max area for water to get in.

[Patrick_G]

I use gel super glue. With enough rock I managed to hold down two 36” pieces of driftwood that had enough buoyancy to float Jack AND Rose! 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Patrick_G

[ErinV]

Thanks everyone for the amazing advice. I boiled all my small pieces but do not have anything big enough to do the big one in. I was also under the assumption that it had previously been in a fish tank. I thought that it should than already be water logged. My bad. I am done for the night, so tomorrow we will start over. Thanks again.

[lefty o]

the thing with wood, is its more about its density than its size , though size plays a part. something large thats not a very dense wood, could take a few weeks until it gets water logged and sinks. for a real difficult to sink piece the fastest cure is to get a piece of slate, drill a hole in it, and screw the wood to the slate then place in the tank.

[B1gJ4k3]

I've had decent luck with boiling wood before, but some pieces are obviously often too big. I've had two pieces of wood soaking in my garage/outside for about 3 months now and they are still very buoyant. My current plan is to put some of the "egg crate" light diffuser from Home Depot at the base of my tank, zip tie the pieces to that, put gravel on top of the diffuser so that it holds it down and hide the zip ties as best as I cant. I figure that also will do a decent job of relieving any unnecessary pressure points on the bottom of that tank that could be caused by the big rocks I'll be putting in.