# What makes a driftwood suitable or not suitable for a betta tank?



## jadaBlu (Feb 14, 2013)

Driftwood is ridiculously expensive. What type of wood is actually going into betta tank. From what tree?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

I'm not sure exactly what your question is but I've had both Malaysian and Mopani in my tanks. Both are perfectly fine except weird thing was my Malaysian never released tannins, both pieces I had. But the Mopani did, not that I minded.

All is good with any driftwood except for when I had a piece of Malaysian and an oak leaf in my 10 gallon. My pH dipped down to 5.5, which is fine for the boy's but my shrimp died....so I don't recommend using driftwood if you have a low pH already and want to keep other things besides Betta's or low pH fish


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## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

If you are using it for decor only, you could get a piece of artificial driftwood. That's what I did for my tank. I think mine was on sale for like $13.00.


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## jadaBlu (Feb 14, 2013)

Well my FIL lives within walking distance of a beach he could send me some. This is why I was wondering what is suitable. It's good to know the Malaysian driftwood doesn't release tannins as I don't want my tank too brown and I may get some amano shrimp in the long run.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Oh sorry, I should have specified. The type of Malaysian that I had gotten was pre-packaged and I believe it was pre-boiled as well. It depends on where you get it because all I could read online was "Why is my Malaysian wood still leeching tannins?" instead of what I was searching for: "Why ISN'T my Malaysian wood leeching tannins?" lol 

If you get it from a beach, get it from freshwater. If the piece is small enough and from salt water, you could boil it a million times and that might be able to get all the salt out but I'd caution using things from salt water beaches in freshwater tanks. There will always be some sort of residue or leeching or something that's not good for the fish/plants :-(


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## BittyB (Jun 19, 2013)

I wouldnt recommend getting beach wood to put in a fresh water tank. If you're getting found wood, you want to go look in fresh water lakes and river areas. Make sure it is clean of course by doing dips and such and letting it sit in tap water for a bit. 

Apparently there's a few wood varietals not good for like pine, Elm, softer woods that decompose faster. 

If you find wood suitable that is not submerged, it might take a long while to get it to aquarium ready. It needs to dry the sap first which takes forever and release some of the tannins out so it's not leeching super heavy.


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