Driftwood

[turtle10]

I really don't want to spend money on more driftwood. Is there a type of wood that is safe to use in betta/shrimp tanks that I can find in my backyard or something?

[kelly528]

Most likely not, any wood you got from the backyard would probably rot in the tank. Driftwood usually comes from tropical hardwoods (same family as mahogany, grenadilla, teak, etc.)is thoroughly dried and is super hard on the inside. My dad tried to saw a piece of manzanita wood in half for me once... took him a really long time, overheated the saw and almost cut his fingers off!

[turtle10]

Ok that is what I saw. I ended up going to Aquatek today and bought two nice pieces of root wood lol, I couldn't resist. It has all sorts of nooks and crannies for the shrimp.