# Grapewood experiences



## BettaBabe (May 1, 2015)

Can't wait to see!


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## evil nick (Oct 20, 2014)

tantric said:


> recently my father deeply cut back his scuppernong vines. sensing opportunity, i descended like a ravenous vegetarian vulture. i collected a pile of vines, most about 2cm thick and cut them down to between 5 and 15cm. i found someone who would sandblast the bark from them, but he wanted $65/hr. i decided to test them with as much bark pulled off as possible in a test tanks (10gal plastic bins, one with HOB, one with powerhead). they didn't discolor the water, but they did develop this film of fungus? for a while, looking almost like silicone sealant. i knocked it off a few times, then it didn't come back. i've attached anubias and jfern to some of the pieces and they are doing well, working on pics.


nice, my neighbor has grapes and cuts his vines. The fungus you are talking about is more than likely just the bacteria feeding off the starches in the wood. It will die off when the starches are all consumed. In the mean time snails and fish love to eat that bacteria. 

Did you by chance bake the wood first. Sorry but I may steal this Idea lol

get us some pics


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## iceburg (Jan 30, 2015)

Just curious, have you been able to get the grapewood to sink well? I've heard it's often too light/buoyant, but I imagine there could be a bit of variety.


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## shanson2 (Apr 2, 2015)

iceburg said:


> Just curious, have you been able to get the grapewood to sink well? I've heard it's often too light/buoyant, but I imagine there could be a bit of variety.


I also harvested some a couple months ago. I couldn't get it to sink and it also grew the clear/smokey jelly like stuff. After a while I got tired of waiting and started to play. I cut some into 6 inch piece and drilled them up the middle to make caves. My plecos are loving them and they sank almost right away. I think the heartwood was the buoyant part.


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## tantric (May 25, 2015)

it takes about a day to sink. it doesn't rot badly, no i didn't bake it. my tank showing some eutrophication, the water turning a lovely gold, but i don't think its from the wood. i use carefiltration - the HOB has a sponge and the PH is connected to an UG filter and i have beaucoup meiofauna - you can see little cyclops and whatnot swimming around. i'm assuming this is why the corydoras won't eat shrimp pellets? they seem ecstatically happy otherwise. this is my grow out tank, 20gal, to become a 39gal. i have a 65w daylight bulb and a double flourescent bulb fixture with one actinic. when i move to the 69 gal, i'll change the 65W to actinic.

'raw' grapewood, just harvestd and peeled










cloudy tank










anubiasuses?



















oh, wow, time for a real camera...and greater, my pics don't show, back to the drawing board...


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## tantric (May 25, 2015)

now i'm going to try and season the rest of the grape wood, the pile of branches you saw up some. i decided to ignore the bits of bark. i'm using a 39gal tank with a light and bubblers. first i put one branch in and watched it a week - yep, silicone sealant fungus. today i washed that piece and added half the rest of my supply to the 39gal.all of it sank within an hour. the one piece don't change the water color at all. pics:


















closer pic


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## Acro (Jul 7, 2012)

In my experience, grapewood decays faster than most woods. After a while (I don't remember how long . . . six months, a year?) thick branches became flimsy and bendable. I think that's why it's normally used with reptiles instead of fish.

However, that was just my experience. Water, tank inhabitants, and numerous other factors might come into play. Either way, good luck!


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## tantric (May 25, 2015)

i just recently started taking this seriously, but once upon a time i was a scientist...and i'm just very empirical by nature. so we'll see...


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## Acro (Jul 7, 2012)

Yes, you _will_ see. 

Also, with a little research, it will be found that Grapewood is a 'soft wood', and normally softwoods don't do as well in aquariums. Simply, they decay faster in water and humid environments. Thus, grapewood is commonly used in desert reptile habitats with hardwoods like Mopani, Malaysian being used in aquariums.

That said, you might be able to keep grapewood in an aquarium for a year or two. I did, but several branches fell off, it was always a little fungus prone, it became flexible, and ended up much skinnier then when I originally placed it in the aquarium (as it sloughed off it's outer layers). It always seemed kinda messy and I remember cleaning it more than the other wood I had in that aquarium. 

Anyway, this thread is titled "Grapewood experiences", so I added my experience. I hope that wasn't out of line.


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## tantric (May 25, 2015)

my 20gal tank, well, my only real aquarium, which has several pieces of grape wood that were soaked for a month or more, has turn a glorious shade of yellow. i'm not kidding - its like sepia, but brighter. but it must be filtering out a lot of the light? the meiofauna is thriving - when i turn off the circulation, you can see what i think are daphnia, cyclopes, rotifers, etc jetting around. when i was in grad school, i was ordered to 'clean out a lab' meaning scavenge, and i brought back this huge binocular scope. kept it on a table for 6 months gathering dust til i just took it to my niece's science teacher and donated it.....now i'd kill for a good magnifying glass! if it's tannin, it's a good tannin - mopani made it look like coffee. this is more jasmine tea.


i attached some fernlets to a piece of grapewood that has been in the empty 39gal for a week.

on the slab - because i live with my father, it isn't odd for me to have gallons of poison sitting around in the background :help:









java fernlets attached to grape wood - the idea is to simulate a rose bush










okay, not to sound conceited, but i rarely find a skill that defeats me, and this webcam photography thing is kicking my ass. it's like my first real statistics class


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## TINNGG (Mar 9, 2005)

I bought a large chunk of what I took to be mopani, though it seemed cheaply priced. It's been in my new setup less than a week, floats (the mopani I bought at my favorite LFS sank immediately), and slimes rather like the small chunks of grape wood I got to attach java fern to. It's already hollow though. I suspect it's the trunk from a culled or dead vine.


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## tantric (May 25, 2015)

TINNGG said:


> I bought a large chunk of what I took to be mopani, though it seemed cheaply priced. It's been in my new setup less than a week, floats (the mopani I bought at my favorite LFS sank immediately), and slimes rather like the small chunks of grape wood I got to attach java fern to. It's already hollow though. I suspect it's the trunk from a culled or dead vine.


i got some from LFS (mopani). it turned my water red, molded and was utterly useless. i soaked in water, brine and dilute HCL and it wouldn't stop leaching tannins. grape puts a bit in the water, but it's this radiant golden yellow. if i sold packets of leaves and woods from various areas designed to stain water particular colors without harming the fish, would that fly?


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## tantric (May 25, 2015)

today's pic of the seasoning grapewood with what i'm officially calling silicone fungus - actually, give me a bit to find my mycology text and i'll look it up


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## TINNGG (Mar 9, 2005)

Tannins don't bother me. Just hope the wood doesn't rot. I like the looks of it, and it's a large piece. It's currently partially covered in slime. Guess I should get a turkey baster and blow the stuff off, see if it gets sucked in the undersized HOB (tank isn't occupied yet; just put it in there to help with cloudiness and provide circulation).

Some enterprising people sell almond leaves for that purpose.


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## TLE041 (Jan 16, 2010)

The issue you'll have first is the bark rotting in a few months because you didn't remove it.

Sandblasting it off is ideal, but hand sanding also works.


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## tantric (May 25, 2015)

TLE041 said:


> The issue you'll have first is the bark rotting in a few months because you didn't remove it.
> 
> Sandblasting it off is ideal, but hand sanding also works.


yes, but no. 

i had the damnest problem with green water for the longest time, and even though i had grapewood under water in another tank with no cloudiness, i couldn't rule it out. when i tried to clear the green, each time, a fish died, so i left. three days ago it vanished. these are the pics. the grapewood, straight from the vine, just dried and roughly peeled then presoaked, seems perfect.


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