# glue driftwood to glass?



## gy960 (Sep 10, 2011)

Your purpose of glueing is to hold the floating driftwood right? Well, siliconing it to the glass bottom is good, but you cant change your scape in the future, so you have to be very sure. 
How about glueing your driftwood to a piece of slate, using epoxy or silicone? That way you can change it in the future

Well another alternative is to wait it out by soaking the driftwood in water and wait for it to be waterlogged. It's the least effort, but might be time consuming which depends on the type of wood.


----------



## othercents (Dec 1, 2013)

I'm not sure if the driftwood floats. It is in a bucket buried about 5" into the substrate right now. I am probably going to pull it out soon and boil it before trying to glue it with superglue gel.

I'm wanting to glue it because it is tall with a branch and I don't want it to fall over. The branch is about 12" and will stick out above the water line slightly. I will have to cut it to allow the versa glass to sit on the tank.

EDIT: Well it looks like I have some underwater epoxy left over from the reef tank, so I can use that.


----------



## Paul.Gitter (Oct 17, 2013)

Putting it on a piece of slate is a great solution. Don't use superglue, but aquarium silicone.


----------



## othercents (Dec 1, 2013)

If I use slate, how large, or small of a piece should I use? Is there any issues with it being too large and causing a deadzone under the slate?


----------



## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

No problem with the slate and dead zone. Slate is often used for this. But there is also nothing wrong with the other methods either. Since it is the bottom, an ugly glob of silicone is not going to show when covered with substrate. Silicone is also not hard to remove if you want to change it. Peels off glass real easy with a razor blade scraper. Comes off the wood but maybe not totally clean. 
My main concern might involve how much the wood wants to float and what might/ might not happen if it turns loose. Large wood can become a real hazard if it is held down and for some reason the adhesive turns loose. It can crash the stuff above the tank. Small wood is not likely to be a problem with this. For a temp fix while wood soaks, how about laying a rock on the end until it soaks up and will stay down?


----------



## othercents (Dec 1, 2013)

PlantedRich said:


> My main concern might involve how much the wood wants to float and what might/ might not happen if it turns loose. Large wood can become a real hazard if it is held down and for some reason the adhesive turns loose. It can crash the stuff above the tank. Small wood is not likely to be a problem with this. For a temp fix while wood soaks, how about laying a rock on the end until it soaks up and will stay down?


I'm not certain if it wants to float or not. Probably does since I just got it from the pet store and it has only been submersed in my bucket for about 1 day. However my reasoning for gluing it was to keep it stable. I can get a piece of slate and glue it with my aquarium epoxy. That will probably be best especially if I decide to upgrade to a larger tank later on.

I will be cutting an inch off the bottom and finding a small piece of slate to glue it to. That should keep it stable.


----------



## ctaylor3737 (Nov 14, 2013)

I also would boil this for a long time, Sometimes that helps it soak up some water I think. Soaking also helps. but yea I would glue it to a piece of slate. This way you can move it anyway you would like. It doesn't have to be that big then just use your substrate to hold it down. That is what I did with all mine and it worked great. Even a flat rock would do if you cant find slate. Gluing it would make it permanent there, the last thing you would want is to want to move it after it is filled and you cant reglue it underwater.


----------



## lochaber (Jan 23, 2012)

I strongly recommend drilling through the slate and bolting the piece of wood to it. Most people just use stainless steel woodscrews, I like using nylon machine screws (I drill and tap the wood so the nylon screw threads directly into it. I've also heard of people using zip ties or monofilament.

Slate can be any size you want. I think most big-box hardware stores typically have 12" and 16" square pieces. I also found a stack of 6" squares recently. I think the terra cotta tiles (or even pot trays) should work as well, they may be easier to cut/drill. 

If you are careful, you may be able to break it to the right approximate shape. I recently cut a couple pieces down with a reciprocating saw and a carbide (I think?) blade. Lots of dust (don't breath it - I should have wetted the slate before/during cutting, but, well...), but pretty easy.

I don't really trust glue to hold to wood, eventually the wood directly attached to the glue will decompose. I can't remember where, but a while back I had seen a tank someone did with cork-bark tubes and sheets for terracing (siliconed directly to the bottom). It looked great, but after a few months or a year or so, the glue (or cork) gave, and they popped up. pretty much destroyed the tank. If you do go with glue, use epoxy. and maybe drill into the piece to give it more to hold on to.


----------

