The Puffer Forum

Just got a question that I am hoping to find an answer for, ever since I changed my tank over to brackish the bog wood in there is growing hair algae like crazy, is bogwood not good in brackish water?

Generally it rots in brackish or salt water.. if you have a lot of hair algae you might want to reduce your light time or increase current (or both).

well it kinda looks like a black fuzz I am assuming it is bba and the bogwood was fine in that tank till I switched it to brackish and it had been in there for over a year, the only thing that has changed in the tank is the salt. Lights are only on for 8hrs a day and its got only 1 wpg over it. I am thinking that if bog wood generally rots in brackish or salt then maybe I should just yank it outta there and find something else to use.

Is there any kinda wood that is good for a brackish setup? (besides mangrove)

The fake stuff There actually is driftwood in with the Figure 8 I'm keeping right now, because he has nematodes and anything used in his tank won't be safe for any other fish.. so we are just leaving it in there. So far, no bba, no rotting that I've seen. I'm not sure how long Vuphy had the tank set up with the driftwood before I took it over though.

Black fuzz would be BBA. It could just be a "phase" it needs to go through, you could give it some time and see what happens.

If it gets really bad, you could consider temporarily adding a molly to the tank to eat it.. I always hate suggesting people buy a fish to eat algae, but if you have a place you could put it, that might be a good option. Then if the algae comes back, move the molly back in for a few days...

I think what I will do is leave it for now and just scrub it all off when I do a WC and see what happens

I'm starting to think the speed of the degradation of driftwood in brackish may be slightly exadurated... I've had a rather light piece with Shakespeare for over half a year, and it's as solid as it ever was. It's also been not just brackish, but full marine for most of that time.

I'm sure it also depends on the wood.

I have some in my goldie tank that the bristlenose has chewed to pieces over the years. Yet other stuff I bought, the bristlenoses have barely damaged at all. There are many types of driftwood out there, some are old, dry stuff that's been sitting in stores for ages, then there's the Malaysian, lots of others.

This is my experience. Or rather, I think "it depends". Not all bogwood is equal. I've got one piece that's been in my aquaria for over ten years, and it has hardly changed in that time. But I bought some other pieces cheaply of eBay a year ago and they're already falling to bits, and this is in freshwater! So I suspect you get what you pay for. The really heavy, dense stuff is probably the way to go.

It also depends on the salinity. In a low-end tank, SG 1.003-1.005, for gobies, figure-8s, and so on then any effect the salt has on the rotting rate of bogwood is trivial. On the other hand, in a high-end tank I don't personally find bogwood terribly useful, unless you have really big bits to re-create mangrove roots. Small fragments just don't look "in place". There are some nice fake mangrove roots that are probably more useful since they look like roots and create nice shady areas for things like waspfish and sleeper gobies to lurk.

Cheers, Neale

Nick wrote:I'm starting to think the speed of the degradation of driftwood in brackish may be slightly exadurated...