The Puffer Forum

Can anyone see any problems with collecting rocks and stones from the local beach to be used in a brackish aquarium?

Surely it can't be as risky as using wood collected from the beach.

Yup, pollution.

Can I do anything to get rid of any pollution?

I boiled my bogwood and never had any probs with that (admittedly that didn't come from a beach in Norfolk though!)

Boiling for 10 minutes should do the trick.

Yeah and microwaving is a good trick too, but out of safety to the livestock I would always stick with products produced for the aquarium

I wouldn't microwave as the contents of the rock are unknown and could contain various metals that will damage the microwave.

ooh kryptonite in the microwave, how cool would that be .

Good point though Boxer, I hadn't really though of it

The real problem with micowave is that if there is any moisture in the rock then it be turned into steam and blow out chunks of rockinto your microwave.

I would also agree to boil or bake them.. boiling be careful though and put a cover on the pot, if there are any airpockets in the rocks they can heat up and explode, sending chunks flying.

manutius wrote:Yeah and microwaving is a good trick too, but out of safety to the livestock I would always stick with products produced for the aquarium

I see where your coming from, but what actually got me thinking about getting rocks from the beach was the quality of stuff sold. Everytime I seem to pick up rocks that are supposedly for aquairum use, they either seem to disintegrate or leave me covered in residue. Neither of which do I desire in my aquarium.

I just don't have confidence that some of the stuff being sold as "aquarium rock" is anything special or safe.

Even stuff from the stores sold for aquariums should be boiled or baked.

I'm a risk taker- my first tank was a 55g community tank- I harvested substrate, rock and wood from a local lake- didn't boil it or anything like that- set up the tank and cycled it, added fish- no worries.

Some of the large round rocks I have in my tanks I picked up from my credit union parking lot- I rinse em off and drop em in- no worries at all.

I live in Texas, that holy rock is everywhere- so when I go to a mountain bike race, I spend a few minutes gathering some rock out in the woods and use it too. I talked to my lfs guy and he said all they do is pressure wash more holes in the stuff they get.

If I was nervous, I'd probably put the rocks in question in a QT and add my giant danios or a feeder shrimp... But I would not add an untested rock/wood to my existing tanks, again.

I wanna boil some rocks now just to see what happens!

Baking a rock from a river can also result in a steamy explosion...

I collect all my rocks from around my area.

Honestly, theres not that many *bad* things to worry about. Provided you didn't collect them from a damp area. I just soak mine for a few days. A seaside might be different though, like Boxermom said, pollution might be more of a problem. Someone I know filled me in on all the details once, I just wish I could remember them. For some reason I only remember the part about leaf litter.

I'll talk to my Biologist buddy and see what he has to say.

Don't get me started on leaf litter. I've almost written an essay about it:P