# Aquarium bark, floating...



## Kurare (Oct 8, 2010)

besides siliconing the bark to a slate, anyone else got some nifty ideas? please share... =S
I piece I have is a for a 30" deep tank, so yeah lotta buoyancy towards the bottom.


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## darkangel66n (May 15, 2013)

Bark or driftwood?


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## Kurare (Oct 8, 2010)

darkangel66n said:


> Bark or driftwood?


It is bark, looks like a chunk from the side of a tree. I think it's called Cork Bark?


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## darkangel66n (May 15, 2013)

Typically that is used for reptiles and herps. I am not even sure if it is safe for in water use. It must be I would think but not sure. That is going to be very hard to keep submerged as it will not get water logged. You can attach it to slate with screws, zip ties, silicone or string. Your only other option that I can think of would be to glue it to the glass of an empty dry aquarium. That however would be permanent.


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## snaggle (Feb 19, 2010)

If its cork bark I don't think there is a way to make it stay submerged. I have heard of people using cork as a background, but you have to silicone it in. Do you have a picture of it?


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## Kurare (Oct 8, 2010)




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## darkangel66n (May 15, 2013)

It is going to take a lot of weight to hold that down. In my opinion your best and only real choice is to silicone it straight to the glass using silicone in a dry tank.


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## Kurare (Oct 8, 2010)

Tanks been running for 3 years, looking to improve the tank's look since I got rid of all my large fish. Gonna silicone some heavy rocks and see how it goes... =S
*crosses fingers* 1 of 2 piece is already curing...


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## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

Cork bark is safe for aquarium use, as I have used it several times. Only way I ever had it stay at the bottom was if I siliconed it, beyond that you can't really make it stay down. Generally speaking, I'd use it for a paludarium with some tree frogs or turtles, not really quality aquarium decore sadly.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Cork is harmless, but not the greatest decor item, since it is so well known for it's extreme bouyancy. Even waterlogged cork won't sink.. logs have been known to float for years.

Just to give you an idea, I used a piece of cork bark about five inches square, more or less, which was about three inches thick on one side when I started with it. I wanted it as a raft for my frogs. It sat way too high in the water for them to reach so I carved out the underside quite a bit. Made it about one inch thick all around.

Took about ten or so big river pebbles siliconed to the underside to lower it enough so the frogs could climb on easily. [ Though I then learned they could care less about being out of water. Oh well. ]

It actually sat a bit too low, so I pried one or two rocks off it before the silicone totally cured. It took weeks, more than a month actually, for the silicone to cure completely, because it was so thick in places. But I figured if I tried to do the pebbles in layers, the new silicone might not stick well enough, as it won't stick to itself once cured.

Last step, I set the bottom into a pile of Schultz Aqua Soil and pressed it down, to set the small pieces into the silicone. It's more or less the same shade as the cork bark, and it hides the rocks and sealant pretty well. Gives it an interesting texture. I'd hoped it would grow moss, but of course, not enough light reaches the underside of the raft to keep moss alive. But some glosso is growing on top of it now.

It floats with about two inches sticking up on one side, but slants down so the frogs can climb on, should they ever decide they want to.

If I had wanted to sink it entirely, I'd have needed a rock larger and thicker than the raft itself. Sticking it to the bottom would have been very hard to do, since you would have problems fitting big rocks to the concavity many cork pieces have on the underside.

So I wish you luck. I think siliconing it to glass is really the only practical way to keep it below water.


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