Cholla Wood for my aquarium?

[Eric G]

I have a few cherry shrimp and blue shrimp. I am looking for another hiding spot for them besides my plants. Is cholla Wood  a good hiding spot for them? If so do you need to prep it anyway before putting in tank, wash? Boil? Do I have to worry about it lowering my ph? I have a lot of mickey platys, Mollys and a couple Siamese algae eaters, do I have to be concerned with their health if I put the Cholla Wood in the tank? As always I appreciate any suggestions

 

[Peaceful Fish]

I didn’t boil my cholla wood. I superglued a rock to the bottom to keep it from floating. It produces tannins especially at first.  I think it would take massive amounts of wood in the tank to noticeably lower PH. I think you will be fine. 

[Milliardo Peacecraft]

I have use cholla wood in my aquarium a couple times, so far I've boiled the pieces until they became water logged enough to sink.  I haven't run into any weirdness in my 29 gallon aquarium with it in there.  My plecos did just fine with it along with my other "community" fish (platties, black skirted tetras, cories, Denson barb, buenos aires tetra, etc.)  I haven't noticed it lowering my pH, but the water here tops 8.0 pH on its own so it would take a lot for a small piece of wood to lower it.  I would say it lasted maybe a year before the pieces had become too thin and soft such that they started to fall apart.

[Dork Fish]

Another good method for adding wood (if the tank is not already established) is to tie the wood to a rock using fishing line. Then after the wood is water logged, cut the line and remove it.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/2/2023 at 6:15 PM, Eric G said:

Is cholla Wood  a good hiding spot for them? If so do you need to prep it anyway before putting in tank, wash? Boil?

You won't have to worry about it lowering PH because it's going to be extremely small compared to the water volume.

As for how to prep the wood I just do something like this:

 

Consider dragon stone as a hide for shrimp as well.