I'm in seaside, Or. An will venture out to cannon beach tomorrow.
Picked up a few nice looking driftwood pieces.

Wondering if any you think the pieces will not work in a tank? Due to contamination.

I would rinse sand and stuff out, scrape barnacles off. Then soak it for a few days?

Soaking: should do this as with pieces bought from petco etc?

I'm surprised places sell them expensive, so many pieces to pick from out here.

Hi protocl,

It is legal to remove small quantities of driftwood from Oregon beaches for your own use. Look for driftwood with little or no "soft spots" which will rot and decompose easily. If you can find and identify hardwoods (as opposed to Firs and Hemlocks) they will last longer, decompose slower, put out less organics, and contain less "pitch / sap than Firs or Hemlocks. Here is a list of some to the Northwest hardwood trees. I use my thumbnail, if it goes into the wood easily chances are it is Fir or Hemlock.

Bigleaf maple - Acer macrophyllum
Black cottonwood - Populus trichocarpa
California black oak - Quercus kelloggii
California-laurel - Umbellularia californica
Giant chinkapin - Castanopsis chrysophylla
Oregon ash - Fraxinus latifolia
Oregon white oak - Quercus garryana
Pacific madrone - Arbutus menziesii
Red alder - Alnus rubra
Tanoak - Lithocarpus densiflorus

Cool, thank you for the information.

Yea, I was thinking it's ok to use the pieces on the beach, witness a few groups start Bon fires.

Hi protocl,

I almost forgot, after the wood comes home I brush / sweep off as much debris as possible, then hose them off (if you have a pressurewasher even better), boil for 30 minutes or more, then soak in a plastic garbage can (with enough weight to keep submerged) until the wood stays pretty much submerged by itself. Change water when soaking when it becomes stagnant to avoid bacteria buildup.

I bake all my wood so there is no bacteria 250f for 3hr

thank you all for the input.

collected a couple of pieces, only. not really the style i wanted to collect. ill post pictures later.

If you don't want to bake. I've used primafix and melafix to cure driftwood in my tub!

Dishwasher with no soap is amazing to clean driftwood.

that sounds like a cool idea... I think the other people in the house probably wouldnt feel the same though.

Does anyone have any advice on where to go to find driftwood? I'm looking for a particularly long but narrow size (got a weird tank).

Next to any body of water. out in Greenwater there are a TON of downed tree's. I got a ton of rock from there for my African tank, but never any driftwood.

I wen down to the ferri terminal and got mine w/ a few dozen rocks! Boiler it and boiled it and boiler it somemore. Then tied it down and placed it in a 5 gallon bucket. It's been out side now for a week (thanks for the post have to check mine lol) see I it sinks on it's own.