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Hello, I recently bought a used tank from craigslist and it came with some wood that was being used in that previous owners tank. Its not Mopani, Malaysian or gapevine. How do I tell if it is safe for a Panaque to eat it? I have recently boiled it.

Pat

I would have thought that most wood that is generally suitable for an aquarium would be fine for Panaque. The only wood that I know of that is or may be toxic to fish is Cedar (definitely), Yew (maybe) and Ash (maybe). I'm sure there are others, but those are the only ones I actually know of. There are very few kinds of wood that are toxic in general.

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Mats

I would agree with MatsP and avoid all and any of the conifer species, larch pine cedar etc
what I give my Panaques is apple oak beech alder and hawthorn, I generally peal the bark off if there is any on the branches and I have had no complaints or problems.
I have just found that the older the wood the quicker they eat through it.
I read somewhere that some of the hard woods like 'Mopani' wood you buy in fish shops is not good as there is evidence that it can actually wear down the teeth of the fish .............. so after reading that I took the piece Ihad in the tank out, .... just to be on the safe side
regards
joe mc

New mopani wood is very hard but over a fair bit of time in an aquarium it starts to soften. Standard bogwood is far better though.

i have cottonwood in all my tanks that i collected myself and all the wood eating plecos i own seem to enjoy it. the stff i get is already fallen and has been for a while

could you post a clear pic of it?
im sure someone could id this piece of wood (maybe )

if you cant i wouldnt use it
better safe than sorry

cottonwood is the common name used in america for what we in europe call poplar, Poplus. there are a good few different species nigra, alba t34 and candensis are the most common...... Iwould guess that it may be refering to Poplus alba as that has a kind of cottony white on the underside of the leaves and the leaves look silver / grey white from a distance.
if some one could post an image of poplus alba maybe Lethalcustoms00 could i.d it...... my computer skills are very limited!!!

Heres a pic of the wood in question.

The bit on the middle/left looks like it may be Mopani to me.

In general, I don't see anything that would stop me from putting it in a tank, but let's hear if anyone else disagrees.

Obviously, if you want to be 99% sure it's safe, then you should only use wood that you know where it's from and what it is, either because you cut it from a known type of tree or that you bought from a fish-shop.

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Mats