Aquarium Driftwood DIY

Many aquarium landscape designs involve driftwood.

Preparing driftwood for an aquarium could take a long time. 

Check my previous video for details.

There are faster ways to cure wood.

Get a dry piece of wood of a desirable size and shape.

In this example, I use chopsticks from a Whole Foods store.

Cut it to size for your aquarium.

Place it in a pot.

Fill the pot with water to fully cover them.

Dry wood floats on the water's surface.

Sink the wood to the bottom of the pot with a load.
In this example, I placed a teaspoon on top of the chopsticks to hold them down at the bottom.

Boil the water.

Cover the pot with a lid.

Boil the wood on low heat.

Check the water level every hour or so.

 The wood has to be fully submerged at all times!

The water gets darker as tannin leach out of the wood.

The wood gets soaked with water.

You may need to change the water if it gets too dark.

In this example, I boiled chopsticks for about 6 hours.
It may take longer to boil larger pieces or different types of wood.
Pull the driftwood out and let it cool down.

Basically, the driftwood is ready.

I put it in a new nursery aquarium.

Keep it fully submerged underwater for about a week to check for water discoloration.
You may need to boil the driftwood again or change the water a couple times if you notice more tannin leaching.
In this example, it was unnecessary.

October 8th, 2017
Here is an example using one of the chopsticks to make a Christmas tree in an aquarium.
More details about this and other ideas in future videos ;)

Have fun and happy aquariums :)