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UK wood in aquariums

Old thread that keeps ticking along but there are some more recent ones on here if you look on topic.
Oak gets my vote and I strip the bark off using a knife and give it a good soak.
The big problem with oak is it's forever leaching tannins - they use it for tannin leather for a reason.

Ash, Birch and Beech are all reasonable choices that are widely available in the UK as are most fruit trees but finding the interesting shapes is the hard part I found.
Sometimes it can just be easier to spend out a bit (extortionate amount) of money for something with interesting shape I've learnt.
 
What i like to look out for when strolling the woods is smaller fallen trees ripped from the ground. Then if reasonably fresh saw the trunk at the roots... I'm a bit lucky maybe with a small forest next door that contains a lot of young Prunus sp. that regularly fall over each time a storm passes over.

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This piece went to a friends aquarium and left the bark on. Looks great and isn't e problem. Still waiting for recent and decent pictures.
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I used heather in my 15L shrimp tank, it had been fired, left out for months, then I stripped as much bark off as possible and kiln dried it!

Looked brilliant for 6 months, the issue is it starts to break down, or at least it did in my tank! Causing issues with water quality and makes a mess!

So I have now removed it. I would use it again for small detail as it can be easily replaced but for a long term hard scape I’d give it a miss!


when the heather was in!


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Would Hazel be a good choice? Just thinking that the branches are interesting, twisted shapes

I've used hazel a few times cut from my garden trees. It's not the twisted variety but I don't see why it would make a difference. The only thing that took time was the preparation. If you have time then I'd cut it and stick it in water over the winter as if you leave the thin bark on it promotes a lot of fungus and by soaking it you make things easier. You can strip the bark but it's time consuming and a bit of a pain so I tend to leave it to mature in water and then it lasts a long time once cleaned and added to the tank.
 
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