Fake wood for brackish tank

[puffermichigan]

Hello everyone,

So, I've had real driftwood in my puffers' tank for about 8 months now, and it's becoming quite the pain. (Basically, it's starting to disintegrate, and is turning the water slightly tea-color by the time the weekly water changes come, even though I use an organic absorption resin in my filter.). I don't actually mind the tinted water (is that weird? It looks kinda natural to me, but I grew up on a lake.) Now, I knew this was going to happen sooner or later (I was hoping for later, but eh, what did I know) and I'm thinking I'll take it out and save it for when I am more permanently located and can swap out my small planted freshwater kuhli loach tank for a huge planted freshwater kuhli loach tank. The wood will look lovely. But that's a whole other project.

My question is: what can I get that will be big enough and interesting enough to keep Jahdio and Jellybean entertained to put in the tank instead? The sg is currently at 1.014, and I'm planning to keep it in that general area (probably 1.016ish) for the next year until my big move to Chicago. It's a 75 gallon tank. I'm kinda stumped. All the "fake" stuff I've found at the LFS is pretty small, unless I want to pay $150 for a truly heinous gigantic underwater shipwreck scene. I don't!!! Do you guys have any ideas for me?





Sorry the pics are kind of horrible, somehow I just can't manage to take decent pictures with anything other than my 1979 Canon. But those aren't uploadable.

[Pufferpunk]

Petsmart has some really nice pieces:
http://www.petsmart.com/search/index.js ... TWOOD&sr=1
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.j ... lmdn=Brand
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.j ... id=prod_cs

[puffermichigan]

Oh those are great!! I'm going to try to find a petsmart by us and check out the sizes, they look like they could be of substantial size!

[xrayjeeper83]

I LOVE the pieces you already have, thats what I want for bloats tank some day

[puffermichigan]

Yeah, I love them too, I just didn't realize that the brackish water would be so hard on them

[xrayjeeper83]

Well once you take them out, if you want to sell them let me know.

[By_a_coo]

Very nice tank! Congrats.

Do you really prefer wood instead of rock?

[puffermichigan]

Well, I'm really excited to do rock once I go full marine and get live rock and a skimmer. I've seen some amazing structures built with rock, and that will be a great project. Until I do that though, it seems too daunting an undertaking . Do you have any suggestions for creating an aquascape with rock? I'd love any ideas, because if I could create something (I'm a DIY kinda gal), I'm guessing I might be able to seed any non-live rock with some live rock once I'm at the right sg?

I've never had a marine tank before, so I'm not completely sure what the order of operations should be, only that in about a year I'm looking at a really big move from Ann Arbor to Chicago, so the plan was to hold off on the live rock etc. until then (my thought--the less to worry about transporting the better, I'm scared enough of the impending move as it is!).

[Pufferpunk]

Good idea. Come visit Filbert when you're in Chgo. You'll have to change your name, too!

[By_a_coo]

You could use dead live rock or base/lace rock. When you run full SW you'd have to seed them with live rock.
This was the tank when my GSP was living in mid-end BW:

[RTR]

I do prefer the look if not the reality of wood for BW tanks. Mangrove swamps are among the richest and most diverse habitats around and are ideal for F-8s and GSPs IMHO. If you take GSPs to full marine, then rock is certainly appropriate and acceptable, but I personally would keep the (artificial) wood setup in the display and keep the LR in the sump.

[puffermichigan]

By_a_coo: That's an amazing looking structure! Once you got the rocks in the tank situated like that, did you have to remove them for cleaning? Did you place them in there loosely or did you have to cement any of them together? It is beautiful looking though, and with plenty of caves for exploration

RTR: I think what I originally wanted for the little guys was the feeling of mangroves and (real mangroves being sparse in Michigan) imitated that with driftwood. Then, upon sad realization that the plants I would have liked to put in there did not appreciate brackish water, I broke down and did fake plants (I really hate fake plants, but J and J like the extra hiding spaces and they do add some color, so I've accepted them). Now that my driftwood (representing the last vestige of "real" in there (besides the fish and sand)) is going to need replacing, I'm a little down about it. If the fake mangrove roots that PP suggested are big enough for the tank I'll be really excited, because they are realistic looking, at least. Then maybe eventually I'll be able to add macro algae or some such delight once my sg is higher and I buy a half-way decent light. (That would make me very happy, though I don't know if I'd be able to keep any of it alive.)

[My HD PVR]

Coco-WOW I love that structure!!!! Would I be able to use some sort of rock like that for my F8's when I get them? I'm having the same problem as puffermichigan, my driftwood doesn't seem very... happy... So I am looking for some decor to restart my tank with

[By_a_coo]

I do prefer the wood scene for my F8 tank, just like RTR said. My F8s feel really comfortable resting and swimming among the natural branches. I've read here and there that wood and salt don't match, since I can't find fake mangroves here in Brazil, my unique option was rocks for the mid/high end BW and live rock for full SW in my GSP tank.

That structure was not cemented together, so I could move the decor if I wanted to change the scenario, and those caves and cranies weren't a pain to syphon during WCs. My GSP only started to pace up and down the glass when he started to grow, then I upgraded to a larger tank.

What I have notice is that F8s and GSPs don't like and don't feel comfortable under high lights.

IF I could get fake mangroves, I would get them and use them FOR SURE.

[puffermichigan]

That is a good point about the light. I have noticed that too, and many times in the afternoon I find myself turning off one of the top lights on the tank when I notice them dozing off under a branch (I had kind of just attributed that as my own way of anthropomorphising them, but it makes sense that they would seek shade and shelter much the way I might if I wanted to take a nap). I wonder if the amount of light that would be needed to sustain macroalgae would be too much for them, or if I could provide enough cover to compensate for that. Hmmmmm.....