i work on the mississippi river an all i have to do is walk the banks an u can find cypress sticks logs, an a few knees from the water falling an rising. is it safe to put these in your tank, how would i go about cleaning them,for one cypress soaks up water like a sponge,a friend out here uses this in his snake cage,,after pressure washing it, it takes about 3 days to fully dry.so anything i soak in it im affraid i wont be abble to get all of it out of the log,stick,or knee

so questions are
1.would this make a good tank decoration as far as fish health..cypress looks beautiful in water.
2.what could i clean it with that wonht hurt my fish incase i cant get it all out of the log
3.i want to add some java moss to what ever log i put in is it hard to find an were should i look for it.

thanks so much

I havent heard about this plant

Cool where do you live? I used to live in Meridian MS. A little further away from the river but I still used to go there. I know that as long as the wood is completely dead (and it should be if its in the river) it should be fine. There are a few steps to sterilize it first though. You should boil it really well to get rid of any bacteria or things on it. Then scrub it all over with rock salt, then soak it for at least a week or two. After all thats done scrub it with the salt again and rinse well, and then it should be ready for your tank. It is always kind of a risk putting anything from outside in your tank, and depending on how polluted the MS river is you may risk putting in chemicals or something. But its up to you.

cypress is a typ of tree. cypress knees are the roots of the tree tyhat grow out of the ground.
they mostly grow in really wet swamp like areas. but the old wood from a cypress tree is beautiful,,an it gets realy dark an rich lookingf when its wet.

Cool. I would love to see this wood

as usual thaks for the replies.i live in south louisiana so finding cypress isnt hard at all.the reason i used the mississippi river as an example .im a river boat captain.


WOW maridian ms,..lol we lived there for like 3yrs on the miltery base when i was growing up...smalll world,,lol

LOL I lived on the base too! What years were you there? I was there in 85-88. Wow, a river boat captain! THat sounds like such a great job!

we lived there 80 to 82

right down the road from a playground,,inna couldasac,,lol a few yrs back we went on the base to look at our old house,,an it was closed down the street was under construction taking out aspestice,,made us feel good,lol

I Want to get a log for my tank it should look
fairly pretty with java moss