Woods and roots are often used in freshwater aquariums as they have a particularly natural effect decorationto Design of underwater landscapes in aquascaping, as territory markers, hiding places or resting places for fish or shrimp or for water mosses, ferns and other epiphytes growing on wood.
Hardly any other material is used as often and in so many different ways in aquariums as wood. The particularly heavy bog and tropical woods are used in the aquarium:
The skill bog wood, mangrove root wood, mopane root or driftwood be.
However, wood is completely unsuitable for a saltwater aquarium.
What roots can be used in the aquarium?
morki wood
has been used in freshwater aquariums for many decades. This wood was mostly enclosed in the bog for thousands of years.
If you have the rare opportunity to visit a moor yourself, which is used for peat extraction and quarrying, then you often see entire walls of bog pine wood along the peat cuttings. It is dried there and then burned, because for the peat cutters it is just a waste product and interferes with the extraction of peat.
Due to the very long storage in the bog, the bog pine wood is included Humic acids have been impregnated. Therefore, it can no longer rot in the water.
Instead, it releases traces of tannins into the water in the aquarium, acts as a buffer and colors the water slightly amber to yellow-brownish. An effect that resembles the black water of tropical rain forests and is desired in the biotope aquarium of the Rio Negro type.
This moorkien wood is naturally so heavy that in the aquarium not raise and therefore also does not necessarily have to be watered beforehand.
However, experienced aquarists water the bog pine roots for a while before putting them in the aquarium so that too much tannic acid is not released into the water and the water is only slightly acidified.
Rcfernandes, Aquario tropical, marked as public domain, details on Wikimedia Commons
The one offered in pet shops is particularly popular Red bog woodwhich impresses with its bright brown-red color and has many filigree branches or roots pointing in all directions.
This bog wood is particularly easy to plant with aquatic moss, ferns or other aquarium plants. These so-called epiphytic plants are tied to the wood with a thin, transparent nylon thread or – if they are plants with only sparsely developed roots, so-called rhizoids, such as water mosses and ferns, glued to the wood with a special plant adhesive.
After a short time, the artificial attachment points are overgrown by the plants and it then looks as if these epiphytes had settled on the bog wood by themselves. If you don’t want to be patient, you can buy root pieces covered with Java fern or with the spear leaf Anubias barteri in specialist shops.
mopane roots
Mopani wood has been used in aquariums in recent years because it is two-tone and therefore very decorative. However, this has its price and is particularly expensive. Because the Mopani trees are only found in southern Africa.
(Photo: Beckie, Creative Commons Attr. 2.0 Generic)
The bright red Mopani wood looks very decorative in the aquarium, here in a cichlid tank.
Mopani wood is very hard. However, use in the aquarium is particularly popular with aquarists who keep sensitive dwarf shrimp, e.g. B. from Sulawesi hold. Because it should not release any heavy metals into the water. On the other hand, it is objected that traces of heavy metals could result from the processing of the Mopani wood with a sandblaster.
Apart from that, the mopane roots, like the bog pine wood, also release humic substances that color the water slightly brown and make it slightly acidic. Therefore, Mopani wood should also be watered thoroughly for a few days or boiled before it is used in the aquarium.
mangrove roots
The red mangrove (genus Rhizophora) forms particularly decorative stilt roots, which can also be used in the aquarium. This red mangrove settles mainly in the brackish water area of the estuaries, while the so-called white mangrove settles on the tropical sea coasts in salt water and could therefore become a problem in freshwater aquariums.
However, with its unattractive respiratory roots protruding vertically out of the mud, it is out of the question as a decoration in the aquarium anyway.
Quadell, Ding Darling red mangrove 1, CC BY 3.0
The wood of the mangrove roots is particularly popular with catfish because it stimulates their digestion.
Increasing use, especially in aquascaping, has also come from Asia in recent years Talawa Wood found. It has a light yellowish-brown color and forms richly branched, very dainty and long roots. However, before the talawa roots can be used in the aquarium, they must be watered particularly thoroughly.
Otherwise they stain the aquarium water too much and release too many nutrients, which could lead to a bacterial lawn on the wood or to an algal bloom in the aquarium due to over-fertilization. When watering the Talawa wood, the water has to be changed more often, otherwise it smells unappetizing.
drift wood
Also Driftwood (English for driftwood) has been increasingly used in the aquarium in recent years and is particularly popular with aquascapers for particularly dramatic underwater landscapes.
Driftwood is wood that has been floating in the water for some time and has at some point been driven to shore by the tide, a water current or a storm. Driftwood does not always have to come from the sea.
Steve Hillebrand, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Driftwood along the shore, marked as public domain, details on Wikimedia Commons
Here, for example, the wood probably did not drift around in the sea for days, but simply fell into the shallow water with the uprooted pines due to soil erosion and remained there for a long time.
In any case, one could discover some beautiful and particularly decorative pieces for the aquarium here (Driftwood on the coast of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas.
(Photo: Larry, Creative Commons Attr. 2.0 Generic (US)
In contrast, at Greenwich Bay, Prince Edward Island Park, this tree root may have floated in seawater for an extended period of time before being washed ashore. In any event, it would make a fine specimen for a larger square aquarium.
stone wood
was formed from silicified wood over millions of years. Depending on which minerals have been stored in the wood, the color scale ranges from gray (as in the following picture) to yellowish to reddish-brown pieces.
While this petrified wood is not quite as heavy as real rock, it can still cause glass to break if placed directly on the aquarium floor. It must therefore be mounted on a base plate made of PVC or Plexiglas so that it is stable and cannot tilt. Small pieces usually have a more lively structure and more varied coloring.
High Contrast, Petrified Wood in front of Ortenburg Castle, CC BY 3.0 DE
Here a magnificent specimen of petrified wood, found in front of Ortenburg Castle, in the Rauscheröd gravel pit.
However, the use of stonewood is controversial, as it releases nitrate and can over-fertilize the water, resulting in algae blooms in the aquarium. In addition, the petrified wood can harden the water.
Preparation of wood and roots for the aquarium
In order to be able to use wood and tree roots in the aquarium, they must meet a number of prerequisites:
- The wood or the root should have been dead, ie dead, for a long time.
- The wood should have been in the water for a long time. If not, must it to be wateredso that it can soak up water and become so heavy that it sinks in the aquarium water and no longer floats up.
- Pieces of wood and roots from the aquarium trade are already pre-treated.
- Wood roots that you have collected on the seashore or in the forest itself are not allowed rot spots have and they must last at least 1 hour be boiled in water. So that any larvae, parasites or germs that may be in the wood are expelled and killed. In addition, air stored in the wood pores is released as small bubbles.
It is also important that the wood and root pieces do not have a cracked surface or protruding splinters of wood that could injure the fish. Therefore, you should carefully smooth the wood you have collected yourself with fine emery paper. Pieces of wood offered in specialist shops are often sandblasted instead.
Installation in the aquarium
When placing the wood roots in the aquarium, make sure that they do not cover a large area in the gravel or are simply placed on the substrate. Because this would be additional Mulm and the Facilitate the formation of putrefaction in the bottom sediment.
In addition, the fish, especially armored catfish and other bottom fish, like to stretch out under the wood in a shelter. The root wood looks most natural if you attach it as upright as possible, for example with the help of one or two suction cups on the side wall.
It looks as if real tree roots were hanging out of the steep bank of a river and into the water. Larger tree roots are screwed with their broad side onto a small PVC plate, which is then attached to the back wall of the pool with silicone rubber.
Read more: sinking roots