Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V5 #416

[Armstr0ng420 at aol_com]

In a message dated 10/30/02 4:42:40 AM Central Standard Time, 
Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com writes:

> 
>  Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 18:04:39 -0600
>  From: "John W. Lemons III" <john at johnlemons_com>
>  Subject: Cheap gravel?  "quickcreet all-purpose gravel"
>  
>  I'm getting ready to set up a 70 gal, and I've been looking at gravel.  It
>  would be reidiculously expensive to order gravel from any of the online
>  sources I've found.  In the past, I've used tex-blast with great success.
>  Its small, smooth, and doesn't mess with the chemistry.  Recently I noticed
>  some "Quickcreet all-purpose gravel" at the local home store.  Its a darker
>  color than the tex-blast, which I like, but its a far larger array of sized
>  and shaped.  Seems to be about .5mm-8mm in size, with a few larger pieces.
>  Some are sharp quartz like, others are smooth river-rock like.  Interesting
>  mixture.  Any way, its amazingly cheap at $3.50/50lbs bag, so I grabbed a
>  bag to test.  I have a small amount in a jar with RO water and I'm waiting
>  to see what it does to the water chemistry.  I figure I'll test gh, kh, and
>  ph.  Any ideas what to look for or of this is a good/bad idea?  Anyone ever
>  use this stuff?
I use this stuff to cap soil substrates in all my tanks. It looks good, and 
you can't beat the price. I would say it works just fine, as I am trading in 
buckets of plants to the lfs regularly.
Tim