Vengeance Creek Stones???

[Idealconcepts]

I went to Lowes yesterday and found some very cheap rocks that have multiple uses (flower beds, lawn edging, terrariums, herb gardens, water gardens, and dry stack wall) . I bought three 15lbs bags for about $5.00 each, $15 for 45lbs of aquarium rock is a pretty good price, compared to the $8-$12 price per pound at most LFS in my area. The “Natural Accent Stone” is from a company called Vengeance Creek Stone www.vcstone.com and stated in the website that the “Accent Stone is also ideal for indoor and outdoor walls, terrariums, habitats, and even aquariums. Laboratory tests have shown Accent Stone to be safe for fish or any aquaculture”. There is a picture of the stones in a saltwater aquarium with the nemo fish (clown fish?) and another fish I am not familiar with. With a little bit of web research I learned that the stone is from back east and is metamorphic quartzite which is pure quartz sandstone that has had a metamorphic change. I did further research on quartz and sandstone and from the searches on yahoo it appears quartzite, quartz, and sandstone are safe for aquariums. Now finally my question. Has anyone had any experience with the Vengeance Creek Stones or quartzite? Or if anyone can provide their opinions on quartzite, quartz, or sandstone in aquariums I would greatly appreciate it? I think I just want to reassure myself that this isn’t a “to good to be true” deal, 45lbs rock: LFS about $450 (45lbs x $10.00) or Lowes about $15 (45lbs x $.33), and that I will not be harming my fish. Thanks in advance for your all your comments.

 

[RogerMcAllen]

Well I know quarts is one of the most stable things on earth, so it sounds good to me.

 

[Idealconcepts]

Thanks Roger, I'm begging to believe this is trully a good deal. The stones are dark grey/black that kinda of resemble slate and a majority are flat thin pieces. They also have ones in a brown tan color, which I will be searching for at Lowes and home depot.

 

[smooth_rivers]

I used their rock, it was the grey slate in a Chiclid tank for years and had no problems at all. I emailed them before I bought and they told me it would be safe, and it was.

http://www.jeffmetcalf.com/images/DSC00253.JPG

 

[Idealconcepts]

Great Picture of your tank smooth_river.
I have a couple questions for you concerning their stones. My first question is how did you clean your stones? I hosed down each stone for about 3 mins with the garden house, took them in the house and scrubbed them with a new brush, rinsed them off, soaked them in bleach (1 cup in 10gal of water) for about a day, rinsed the stones and let them soak for a half day, then hosed them off again, soaked them again for half a day in hot water. Finally gave them a final rinse, dumped them into a 5 gal bucket and used water conditioner and let it sit for about an hour before I placed them in to my tank last night. My second questions is are you just stacking the stones on top of each other or are you using silicone or some type of glue to keep the rocks together? Is hotglue safe? I just stacked my on top of each other away from the edge of the tank and they are only about 3 stones high at most. Thanks for your input again.

-Idealconcepts

 

[smooth_rivers]

I just stacked mine, I have a tendancy to redecorate at a moments notice, lol. Plus with Chiclids it's sometimes best to rearrange when adding new fish so everyone has a chance to pick territories again.

I didn't do anything to mine before adding to the tank except scrub them in the hottest water my hands could take with a stiff nylon brush.

If you are going to try to glue them, I wouldn't use anything but aquarium silicone.

 

[Idealconcepts]

Thanks again smooth_rivers, I'm probably not going to glue them because I can rearrange them without having to deal with glue. I did buy aquarium silicone from home depot, only $3.99 each. With a little research and effort you can get alot of items for the tank alot cheaper. Where you able to find the brownish/tan colored stones from Vengeance, I could only find the grey at the Lowes? I want to get a few bags incase i want to mix the colors and if possibly I purchase a larger tank in a year or so.

 

[smooth_rivers]

Yes, I got both colors at Lowes. That picture is actually pretty old. I had to wait a couple of weeks on a new shipment of the grey ones. So you can take that picture and double the rock wall. It goes almost to the top of that tank (55 gal standard). I have some of the brown in a 30 gal tank thats a FW with some of the really nice 'silk' type articicial plants that looks really nice also. No problems with either tank.

 

[Idealconcepts]

Thats good to hear, I will need to ask the people at Lowes if they normally get both colors in and when they expect to get a shipment of the brown. If my interest in tanks keeps up I may turn my current 130gal into some type of African Cichlid tank (would like the brighter colors) and move all my current fish into hopefully a +200gal tank before they start to out grow the tank . Thanks again, knowing some else has used for a few years without any problems really reassures me that this was a very good deal.