New gravel / decorations question.

[digitalrainman]

I am setting up a new 30 gallon i got with pebbles from walmart, and flagstone from around the backyard pond.

My concern was putting in rocks that may be harmful to put into an aquarium. So i read up on how to test if a rock will leech or not and they said to put on an acid to see if it fizzes and possibly leeches. The flagstone did not fizz, but the regular old pea pebbles and pond pebbles, the normal pea size rock stuff you get in big bags at walmart / home depot, they fizzed like crazy. But i have always heard that this is where some people get their gravel, is just big bags of pea pebbles.

Does anyone know first hand if it may be harmful to use bagged pebbles / river rock, and flagstone? Or should i just go a few weeks testing the ph and see if it affects it at all?

[Misty]

With the gravel, did you rinse and dry it first. When David first started to look for something to put in his tank, we looked at the regular gravel but I was concerned with it because it "soft" pieces in it. That might be what's fizzing.:confuzeld:

The flagstone...it has calcium in it and can change the kh of your water. However, I had a pallet of it and tested and soaked pieces of it for over two weeks and it never changed the water...that's not saying that putting several pieces in your tank won't though. Just make sure you rinse it really well and try vinegar on it first, too.

[digitalrainman]

Yeah i rinsed the walmart bagged stuff for about an hour straight. Then the flagstone i scrubbed and boiled for about 20minutes.

[Misty]

If it still fizzes, then I wouldn't use it.

[kewlkatdady]

be careful of using rocks from your yard as they may have chemicals on them from weed and/or bugs poisons.

[tsunderl]

My son thought I was crazy, and I am, but I put holey rock in the dishwasher to clean them. No soap of course.

[fatfutures]

I have black flagstone in my 55 gal. Never had any problems with it. Gave it a good rinse and put it in the tank.

[Jim2982]

The dishwashing idea really is a good one. That's how I cleaned all my limestone in my African Cichlid tank. But not soap, just like Tsunderl said. It really works great. That way you don't have to scrub. I soaked mine in a mixture of one part bleach to three parts water for about 30 -45 minutes and then ran them through a soapless dishwashing cycle. I highly recommend that route.

[AndrewH]

To be honest I never tested the pea gravel bags from Wally World/LFS... didn't even occur to me that I might need to :eek:

I did test my slate without any fizzing.

I'm not sure what I'd do... if you end up using it I would definitely keep a close eye on the water parameters, or see if I can find something else to use.

[digitalrainman]

Yeah i have been monitoring it for almost a week now, no change in ph yet. Still the same old high ph that we have. I took out any questionable larger rocks, dried them off, and did the vinegar test instead of muriatic acid, since alot recommend vinegar instead of a stronger acid. There was no fizzing using them.

Today or tommorow bigal's order will come in with a heater, air pump, and new t8 bulbs, then a few days after that i will throw in some test fish to see if there are any issues before i put in reys angels that i have spread out in 3 other tanks. This tank will have cycled 3 weeks before fish, so i imagine i will be good to go.