Stones from Landscaping Shops?

[krisw]

Everytime I drive to House of Tropicals in Glen Burnie, I pass by "The Stone Store," and wonder if I could be getting my rocks cheaper at a place like this.

<a href="http://www.thestonestore.com" target="_blank">http://www.thestonestore.com</a>

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this or other landscaping stores for their aquarium rocks? I would guess that they would be cheaper than at our LFS. Any thoughts/input/concerns on this?

Thanks!
-Kris

<edited><editID>krisw</editID><editDate>38309.5449768519</editDate></edited>

[SCMurphy]

Go for it, I'd like to see this place.

[krisw]

OK... I'll let you know what I find. I was mainly asking about the safety of these rocks. Any thoughts on whether shops in this industry spray their rocks with anti-fungicides or anything like that to keep rock walls and pavements looking nice? (I guess I just need to go and ask questions, huh?)

[krisw]

OK. I emailed them. Here's the response:

We do sell many of our stone products by the pound. Most range .35-.50 per pound.People shopping for stone for aquariams often find many stone products here that they would like to use.If you can I recommend stopping by to see our selection.This saturday is our last saturday open for the season.We will be open 8am-3pm. Other wise we will remain open for the season M-F 7am-5pm.

thank you for your interest

I think I'm going to try and get over there tomorrow if I can get off work in time. Will keep you posted. If this place works out, $.35-$.50/pound is pretty competetive compared to what I'm used to paying at the LFS.

[Aaron]

Kris, there's a resevoir down the street from me where rocks are free. If I'm worried about contaminents I just run them through the dishwasher on the hot cycle with no soap. Most of the rock there is quartz of some type, but if you search long enough you can find some darker rocks too.

[Aaron]

Hmmm...they have sand there too. I wonder if that's any cheaper than the sand at AC?

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

Rick and I have been to the Stone Store. We dropped by
back in January when we were shopping for hotels.
They do have some nice stuff!

Road trip anyone?

[krisw]

OK... I went down there today, and they do have quite the supply of rocks. They had something they called "Aquarium Cove Rock," which I'm quite sure is geared toward reef tanks. Otherwise, they have a number of different kinds of slate. Generally, gray slate was $.35/lb, red slate was $.50/lb. As you would expect, most of the pieces were quite large, with cut edges. You would want to break them up to get more managable, and unique pieces. They also had lava rock, tons of fieldstone, shale, granite, quartz, etc. (more than I could list here)

I ended up getting about 100 pounds of what they called PA Fieldstone for $.35/lb. I'm guessing that's from Pennsylvania. Eitherway, it passed the vinegar test, and I'm boiling it all now in batches. They also had about 10 big boxes of river-washed rocks, all sorted by size and color. (Sizes from softballs down to pebbles.) These river-rocks were $1.25/lb.

All in all. It's still cheaper to go out and find the stuff in the wild, but this place has quite the selection, and the prices sure beat the fish stores. The salesman were all quite helpful as well.

-Kris

[Ben Belton]

Now if you can just find a place called the Diftwood Store.

[Cory]

<a href="http://stores.ebay.com/ANNIES-UNIQUE-DR ... ayZ2QQtZkm" target="_blank">ANNIES UNIQUE DRIFTWOOD PIECES</a>

The best i can do on short notice...consider finding the taxidermy store too!

<a href="http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQgotopageZ1Q ... propertyZ1" target="_blank">More Driftwood on Ebay</a><edited><editID>Cory</editID><editDate>38312.9584143519</editDate></edited>