# Just got in some Cholla wood....funny!



## janftica (Jan 11, 2010)

I got some Cholla wood for my shrimp tanks as I had heard some good things about this.

Had my hubby cut it up into 3 sections, and I soaked it for a day or so.
Just put a couple of pieces into 2 of my tanks....Cherry one and low grade CRS tank just to test it out.

 It looks like a log with Ants crawling all over it, inside and out!
they LOVE it. even my tiny new babies are inside and on top of it....:icon_cool


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## palufreak (Mar 1, 2011)

Any pics??


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## Moe (Jan 22, 2004)

I never heard about this kind of wood, a picture would be nice


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## PinoyBoy (Mar 14, 2008)

This is how it will look like in your aquarium after [STRIKE]rotting[/STRIKE] 6 to 8 months.










Other than that after a couple of searches, it doesn't do anything bad to your aquarium.


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## F22 (Sep 21, 2008)

looks super cool after 6 months


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## Moe (Jan 22, 2004)

Does it float at first?


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## psalm18.2 (Oct 16, 2010)

Weird!


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Cholla... *shudders*... *nightmares*... oh how I loathe thee, Cholla. The most evil cactus in the world. The jumping cholla will make a grown man cry.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

I use cholla wood in my tanks. I have a zillion pieces.

It floats for a day or two, then sinks.

Plecos eat it, shrimp eat the microorganisms that eat it (like leaf litter)


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## asukawashere (Mar 19, 2010)

I remember we had this stuff for our hermit crabs to chew on when I was a kid. Fun times. I hear plecos/otos/herbivorous cats/shrimp all love it. Never tried it myself, but for "ants on a log" I might have to  Sounds fun. On the other hand, my shrimp tend to swarm all over any new object in the tank (to investigate?), then more or less ignore it after it's passed inspection...

I was kind of tempted to buy a cholla catcus and try to grow my own. But then I googled them and looked at the photos of those spikes... yeah. Not terribly inclined to die of cactus impalement.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

LOL, Yeah, if these logs still had spikes in them, I'd be thinking twice about touching them.

But yes, anything that normally requires roughage in their diet will latch onto the cholla and tear it up. I have a tank with 7 blue eyed yellow ancistrus, and they were tearing up my bogwood (which was beautiful and covered in mini pelia), I added a few of these logs, and they haven't ever gone back to rasping my nice bogwood. And shrimp use it like a shelter once the inside is eaten out


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## janftica (Jan 11, 2010)

Yeah, they seem to like to crawl inside it and maybe it will give them another hiding spot. The babies seem to like going in and out of the holes. Didn't know it disintegrates over time, but that's cool too. Yes its exactly like to picture up top...as long as it doesn't put the PH up it will make a nice centrepiece in the tanks for now.
Glad I bought it.


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

Interesting....havn't seen this before. Kind of like it.


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## HOLLYWOOD (May 12, 2007)

Agreed!



macclellan said:


> Cholla... *shudders*... *nightmares*... oh how I loathe thee, Cholla. The most evil cactus in the world. The jumping cholla will make a grown man cry.


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## yogi1974 (Jan 31, 2009)

I have a ton of it in my backyard...my plecos love eating it. Got to put large, thick pieces in or they will tear it apart in no time. Dead cholla has no spines whatsoever, but I do hate running into live cholla, OUCH!!! Need needlenose pliers to pull them out...


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## asukawashere (Mar 19, 2010)

yogi1974 said:


> I have a ton of it in my backyard...my plecos love eating it. Got to put large, thick pieces in or they will tear it apart in no time. Dead cholla has no spines whatsoever, but I do hate running into live cholla, OUCH!!! Need needlenose pliers to pull them out...


*shudders* anything that requires pliers to remove the needles is just not cool. Still, cholla wood all over the backyard... that'd be nice. Would you consider filling a large flat-rate with it and swapping/selling it? I'd be interested.


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## whizzle (May 12, 2010)

asukawashere said:


> *shudders* anything that requires pliers to remove the needles is just not cool. Still, cholla wood all over the backyard... that'd be nice. Would you consider filling a large flat-rate with it and swapping/selling it? I'd be interested.


Ditto I'd much rather give my money to someone on here than aquabid.


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## jahmic (Jan 30, 2011)

Really cool...but does it seriously come from this?!


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

So I've been soaking a piece of cholla wood for about a week now and it's still floating. Do I soak it for longer? It's also still releasing tannins.


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## yogi1974 (Jan 31, 2009)

"Would you consider filling a large flat-rate with it and swapping/selling it? I'd be interested. "
and
"Ditto I'd much rather give my money to someone on here than aquabid."

Yes, I would be willing to fill a large flat rate box for you guys. It is a really busy time of the year for me...so give me a few days. Thanks!!


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## bsmith (Jan 8, 2007)

Id pay for some of this Cholla wood. If my plecos like it that would be great.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

I have some for sale in the powersellers area. I think I have a few pieces left after todays orders


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## yogi1974 (Jan 31, 2009)

I finally found time to start shipping some chollawood. Sent first box out today. Just pm me and we can work something out...


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## jeffvmd (Apr 16, 2010)

I got a couple from liam and boy do the shrimps love to graze on, in and around it.:hihi:
I just had it washed and let it float in tank. Sank after a couple of days.


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## shrimpnmoss (Apr 8, 2011)

I just got some from Liam in the mail. Mine sunk in an hour, by the time I was done with dinner it was crawling with shrimps....I wonder why?


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## yellowsno (May 15, 2011)

ohhh man after hearing everyones report on this stuff i cant wait till mine gets in in the mail from liam... (ohh wednesday... your so close yet so so so far)


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## Buff Daddy (Oct 19, 2010)

I have four pieces of cholla in my tanks. Even after boiling them, 3 took ~48 hrs to sink and one has been floating over a week. The one floating is about 80% _solid_. The other three are basically hollow. Floating or not, my shrimp are all over them.


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## shrimpnmoss (Apr 8, 2011)

Now that I thought about it. It is probably the sugars in the wood that the shrimps are after. If this comes from a cactus plant, I bet there is a high sugar content in the plant. My wife uses Agave Sugar for coffee sweetener. Or it could be the high sugar content that causes micro-organisims to grow during the drying out process and that is what makes the shrimps crazy.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

oooo, could be! I think agave is more of a succulent though. I looked up cactus nutriitional content online and they seem to be mostly fiber, with some potassium and complex carbohydrates. They definitely have a crazy amount of surface area for microorganisms to grow on though!


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## yellowsno (May 15, 2011)

microorganisms need nutrition themselves... maybe they are feeding off the sugars and the shrimps off the microorganisms... maybe take a peice of cholla wood that shrimps have been gorging themselves on and throw under a microscope??


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

I do have a decent stereoscope, I'll have to see if there's anything visible on a swab.


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## yellowsno (May 15, 2011)

u gotta do a comparison between the regular water... a swap from the cholla a swap from a sponge filter... just so we can do a full analysis... what im expecting from this is a higher then normal amounts of microorganisms even more so then the sponge filter


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## allegoriest (Jul 9, 2010)

I've never grown cholla, but I keep alot of other cacti, and generally, if you catch it on fire, alot of the needles will burn. I mean, I've never tried on a cholla, and I like my cactus to be spiky either way, but it usually works. We had lots of cactus in the yard as a kid, and my parents had to catch them on fire to keep the dog and I from getting into it. D:
Every once in a while I take a lighter to some of my cactus just because I like watching the needles burn. >__>

I also want cholla wood so badly, especially since one of my plecostomus is destroyer of underwater worlds. D: But alas, I am le poor. Sorry shrimpies.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

*cholla wood*

Unless you act like a weenie, it's not very hard to scrape the dried cactus off leaving beautiful wood with many uses. Someone in the Alpine area furnishes me occasionally with a pickup load.


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## madcaribou (Feb 11, 2015)

One of my dumb platties got stuck in some cholla wood I used. I had to use a saw to free 'er.


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