Here is the question guys, I found a beautiful piece of drift wood on the shore of a river and I'd like to know how can I sterilize it so I can use it in my tank....
I was thinking of keeping it in a bowl with alcohol for a couple of hours and then maybe boil it for a few minutes...
boil it or if it's too big to fit in a pot you can bake it in the oven, or so i've read. i think before you oven it you might want to make sure it's wet to prevent the wood from splitting from the heat. hopefully some people with experience baking driftwood will chime in.
Really you can just give it a couple good scrubdowns and put it in your tank usually. If you're really nervous about it you can boil it for a bit, but it's not necessary for the most part. You could also soak it for a long time to release as much tannins as you can.
I would skip the alcohol. I would be worried about getting it out if the wood soaked up a bunch of it. Boiling it for a bit will definitely sterilize it.
Here is what I did with a great four foot long piece of root stock I picked up off a river bank about a month ago. It has been weighted down in my bath for the past four weeks. As it had been in the river for goodness knows how long most of the tannins were gone. I change the water every two days and at weekends take it out and high pressure wash it and scrub it too. This has resulted in removing a lot of ingrained debris and restoring a wonderful color tone and texture to the finish. I guess what I am trying to say is don't rush it and invest some time.
It is not fully saturated yet so I siliconed three plastic suction caps to the bottom of by 75g and will tie it down with fishing line.
Small pieces I boil for about 10 mins. The same river has banks of 100% solid gray slate rocks, not so old that they are laminating. I boil those for about 10 mins as well....put them in the water while it is cool and bring it up to boil very slowly.
Don't use any chemicals even household types as they will be absorbed and will leach out later.
By the way, if the wood is at all "punky" discard it, or dig out rotting areas as there could be some wild *** bugs in there.
I'll be posting pics of this tank rebuild and the wood, rocks etc starting around late March.
I always boil driftwood. If i dont have a pot thats big enough for the wood ill find a large container to put the wood in then dump bioling water on it. Fill it up with boiling water and let it sit for a while then empty and repeat. I did this about ten times then left it in the container to let it finish sinking.
Yes boiling rocks can be a little dangerous. I made a thread a few days ago about a piece of either Shale or Flint(havent figured it out yet) that blew up while boiling. It was brought up to a boil slowly and broke after being at a constant temp for ~20 minutes. So dont believe people when they say it only happens with rapid temperature change.
