# Rocks...why cant i ever find any nice ones?



## GraFFix (Feb 24, 2005)

OK i see all these tanks with beautiful rocks in them. I love the ADA rocks and stuff like that but not one LFS in my area carries anything that looks nice like the ones I see in some of your tanks. Im to the point that im willing to pay shipping to find some online. 

So does anyone know if there is an online store that sells rocks? Im looking for dark colored rocks greyish/black for a mountain scape idea i have. Or really any nice looking rocks not this crappy lava rocks my LFS's have lol


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## bharada (Apr 17, 2004)

You need to take you searches to landscape yards and nursuries.


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## kwc1974 (Jan 4, 2006)

yeah go to a landscape yard, not only will you find a wider varity but cheaper prices too.


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## david lim (Mar 30, 2004)

Where do you live? rock quarries, nurseries, landscape places are great areas for rocks.

Also if you want to order ada rocks, I believe aqua forest will ship their stuff.

http://www.e-aquaria.com/aquaforest.html

good luck

david


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## waterdog (Feb 2, 2006)

My local landscaping guy has box of broken up flagstone and other pieces that he lets me rummage through anytime I want. He has hundreds of pieces of stuff that is as big as my hand or bigger and its no charge. Also-this may sound a little bad-but parking lots can be great- My office and several local malls use fieldstone as a border filler. every once in a while I grab a really nice rock if it catches my eye. I certainly wouldn't grab a bunch, but over time I think I have picked up 3 or 4 that grabbed my attention and look great in the tank. Just make sure you boil anything you want to put in !!


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## ringram (Jan 10, 2005)

There's also something you can pour on rock or sand to see if its aquarium-safe...muriatic acid? Either way, I'd be certain to get funny looks if I walked around a rock quarry or landscaping yard with an eye dropper or bottle, pouring acid on the rocks. lol. Kind makes me wonder what the folks at the quarry would say if you walked in to buy 150 lb of rock and when they asked you what its for, you say a fish tank that's going to be a centerpiece in your living room. It would probably be something between a constapated sneer and a confused stare. 
Yes, I would definately boil it before putting it in the tank. Probably want to even soak it in a bucket of water w/ a little bleach...then rinse it very, very well.


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## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Yeah Steve at aquaforest is great to deal with. I'd recomend getting the Seiyu rock around 20lbs. Like all ADA stuff, you are going to have to spend a lot to get what you want. I think with shipping it came to $100.


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## JaySilverman (Jun 19, 2005)

$100 for rocks is outragious. But if you're stuborn enough I guess people will buy it. I wish they wouldn't. Maybe then the prices would get lower.


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## random_alias (Nov 7, 2005)

It seems like a lot but they aren't rocks like the regular rocks that are all around us. $100 for 20lbs of the rocks I see everywhere I look where I live, yeah, that would be totally outrageous.  

But if someone has to find a location that has particular stones that look good in aquariums, go collect them, ship them to someone (expensive) and then that person has to pick them out and ship them to you and in the end it costs you $100, that's not so bad.

I bought Ohko stone from AFA (Aqua Forest Aquarium) and was happy to pay the price because it was cheaper than a plane ticket to Japan and a guide to help me hike around mountains and then having to ship everything I collected back to the states.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

> $100 for rocks is outragious.


I agree! Especially when you consider that by the time your plants have grown in, typically most of the rock (or wood) will be hidden from view. I'd rather put the money towards the tank, plants or ferts. My 2 cents.


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## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

They also carry Manten stone shown in the following picture, but it 
runs around $8 a pound. I wanted to get two large Manten stones they had 
in stock for a 75 gallon (10 lbs each), but it was to much. The Manten 
stone has great color, the Seiryu stone has a lot of character. The 
Ohko stone seems like the most common out of all three of the rocks, 
three different fish stores carry it in LA. All three rocks don't look 
like much until you put them under water. I've tried to acquire the 
Seiryu and Manten stones at rock yards, but never had much luck.


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## JaySilverman (Jun 19, 2005)

random_alias said:


> It seems like a lot but they aren't rocks like the regular rocks that are all around us. $100 for 20lbs of the rocks I see everywhere I look where I live, yeah, that would be totally outrageous.
> 
> But if someone has to find a location that has particular stones that look good in aquariums, go collect them, ship them to someone (expensive) and then that person has to pick them out and ship them to you and in the end it costs you $100, that's not so bad.
> 
> I bought Ohko stone from AFA (Aqua Forest Aquarium) and was happy to pay the price because it was cheaper than a plane ticket to Japan and a guide to help me hike around mountains and then having to ship everything I collected back to the states.


You're not considering the actual worth of the rock. It holds no actual value. There is no shortage of this rock. It's not rare at all and one should only have to pay a little more to buy it here. The fact that a place like ada can inflate the price 500% just because of cosmetic value is rediculous.


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## random_alias (Nov 7, 2005)

JaySilverman said:


> You're not considering the actual worth of the rock. It holds no actual value.


They hold actual value if people are paying actual money for them just like a car has no actual value unless someone wants one enough to pay $.01 for it.

What determines value? Money invested in manufacturing? If so, land has no value but we know this to be untrue. Something has as much value as one person somewhere places on it. It's just a matter of matching the item with the right person. Value = desire, not just $ invested in creation.



JaySilverman said:


> There is no shortage of this rock. It's not rare at all and one should only have to pay a little more to buy it here.


There is a shortage of the rock. I couldn't find it anywhere around here, therefore there is a local shortage which increases the value of the rock where I live. You can't say that something is common in another part of the world, therefore it should cost relatively the same price when sold to a part of the world where it is rarer. It's about supply and demand. There's no rule saying other places should just hand over their unique natural resources.



JaySilverman said:


> The fact that a place like ada can inflate the price 500% just because of cosmetic value is rediculous.


Inflating the price because of cosmetic value? I thought the only reason we used any of this stuff was for it's cosmetic value. What plants do you have that require stones in order to grow well? Like I mentioned earlier, ADA is also paying collecting and shipping charges to get these stones to us. They aren't manufactured.

You make it sound like you can't step outside your door without tripping over a Manten or Seiryu stone, like ADA is pulling something out of your back yard and trying to resell it to you.

I understand. We all want to be able to put a quarter in a bubble gum machine and have an egg full of manten stone roll out into our hand but that's very unrealistic. Like I've mentioned, there's a lot of labor and addede expense in getting these stones to us and that costs money which has to be factored into the price. Then there IS the rarity issue around here. Obviously they aren't going to sell me Sieryu for the price of granite or limestone at a local landscapers.

I've tried to find good stone and wood locally. I've looked through landscape yards, turned my car around in the road to scope out wood branches laying by the roadside, searched Ebay religiously, checked all the common driftwood sites, checked the LFS, etc. It's been a total pain and completely unsuccessful. I just ordered a $75 box of Manzanita branches. There are trees all around me and I just paid $75 plus shipping for branches. But you know what, I was happy to because I had spent at least that much already in gas and time and had come up with nothing. Manzanita isn't a local phenomenon where I live so I'm paying something to collect it, sort it, clean it, box it and ship it to me from the other side of the country. Is that unfair? No. Am I stupid for not settling on some ugly pine branch that'll rot in my tank? No. Is a good hardscape valuable enough to me to pay for? Definitely. Should someone do all that for me for free? Of course not.


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

Just a point of "clarification": 
ADA does not overly inflate the price of the stone or try to take advantage of anyone's desire to have it. In Japan, the rock is quite reasonable. ADA's wholsale charge for the rock on the front end is quite reasonable. It is only after importation of such a heavy item to the US that the final offer price-- with retailer margins added in-- that the rock becomes so "outrageous"ly expensive. 

(side note: Good driftwood is about to be abundantly available when I offer it online at reasonable prices. Should be up by March.)


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## LiLGuppyGal181 (Feb 14, 2006)

if all you are looking for is some pretty stones for your tank I suggest petoskey stones. you may need to go onto ebay to find them (that is where I got mine) but they are porous and therefore fairly light as far as stones go, which saves on shipping. good ones can have a really nice pattern that forms from fossilized corals I believe.

happy hunting for the perfect rock!
Laura


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Want to find rocks? Sharp jagged ones = mountains. Smooth round ones = streams & rivers. Look for steep slopes and places where topsoil has eroded away. Partially weathered rock has a nice texture. Honestly, $100 for rocks? But I didn't understand people paying for bottled water either.

Maybe I'm spoiled having grown up in the Rockies. There are millions of places to go to get nice stuff for hardscape. Don't just carbon copy someone else's idea of some zen-appropriate thing. Open your eyes and go find something nice! Get a geological map of an outdoors area near where you live. Talk to geology geeks. Get out of your car and hike a few trails. Cary a bottle of muriatic acid with you. For me, finding something nice is 1/2 of the fun.


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## pineapple (May 4, 2004)

New England is a lot better for rock collecting than some other areas in the USA. Plan your holidays with a geological map...


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Care to give some ideas wher eto look Pineapple, geologist boy If it helps, I'm in the area where the Holyoke Mt range crosses Ct River valley. All I have ever found is granite, shaley type stuff or sandstone. Nothing with that nicely textured, greyish black stuff. Even though my local mountain used to be a volcano (back when the Ct river was a rift lake) I have never found any cool basalt stuff, just squarish, reddish-brown blah!


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## user367 (Dec 15, 2004)

guaiac_boy said:


> Open your eyes and go find something nice! Get a geological map of an outdoors area near where you live. Talk to geology geeks. Get out of your car and hike a few trails. Cary a bottle of muriatic acid with you. For me, finding something nice is 1/2 of the fun.


I also think-this good idea if your health good.
All my rocks I found at different places>and I Have very big pleasure to remember my trips when I look at my tanks/
But I do not think that bottle of muriatic acid is need!
One of my tanks is decorated plates of limestone and 40 sp. plants live there all right.
Perhaps there are not Mayaka)))


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## jimjim (Jan 25, 2004)

Try your local gravel yard for Rip-Rap. Its broken up granite in either gray or black. Some of them look better than the afor mentioned Mantan stones....Jim...PS cost here in Georgia= about .12 cents a pound.


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

A lot depends on where you live too. Some regions just don't have the good stuff, others are plentiful. Living in the Rockies, near mountains, streams, or the coastline has alot od advantages over many in the midwest, Gulf Coast, and more desert climes. 

If you have the $$ to buy the stones you desire/need/want-- then go for it! It's your tank, your hobby, and your money.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

The value of anything, whether it is rocks, driftwood, wheat, gasoline, etc. is set by what a willing buyer will pay and a willing seller will sell for. So, an old postage stamp can have a value of $250,000, a three bedroom house can have a value of $1,000,000, and a chunk of rock can have a value of $???, depending on its history, where it is, what it is made of, what it will be used for, what it looks like, etc. Personally, I am not a willing buyer of a $100 rock or piece of wood. (I would certainly be a willing seller though!)


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