So new, so many questions..

[calura]

I didn't set out with the intention of getting (back) into this hobby. YEARS ago (1980s) I remember wanting a rock tumbler from an old Sears Wish catalog, but it was like $300 even back then. A month later I unwrapped it for Christmas. It came with a small selection of tiny stones, of which my favorite turned out to be Tiger's Eye. I had that one tiny stone for over 10 years.

My current hobby/small business is now aquariums. After a visit to an "earth store" for my husband's recent birthday, we came home with a $600 piece of pyrite which now sits on a mantle above our fireplace. I thought about coating it in resin to protect it, and the thought occurred to me that I could do this with lots of other natural stones, and put them in my aquariums! (All stones need to be coated in *fully* cured resin for an aquarium so they don't affect water parameters, but it protects the stones too.)

Last week I got a bad back injury and have been stuck in bed since then. There's not much to do when stuck in bed, so at one point I was on Temu (the website, NOT the privacy-invading app) amd came across a cheap beginner-type composite rock tumbler with a 3lb barrel. It was only about $50, but also looked like a little bear, and I bought it. It should arrive tomorrow. It comes with two packets of tumbling grit and two packets of polishing grit. Impulse buy, but I'm fine with that. It promises to get the rocks done in half the time (15 days as opposed to 30) but I may just do the full 30 days anyway.

Little did I know just how many tumblers were actually out there! And I also didn't realize there are different grits for different rock hardness. It makes sense, I just didn't realize it.

I bought some Bloodstone (Jasper) from Amazon and Lapis Lazuli from Temu to get started. I am hoping the grit and polisher that comes with the tumbler will handle these two.

But my first question deals with bornite - one of the two "peacock stones". I know it will tumble into a gold color, but have read that there are ways to use acid to get the iridescent color back? Could someone give me details on how that is done? What type of acid, how long, diluted or undiluted, etc? I would need to tumble them to get rid of rough edges for aquarium use, but that iridescent color would seriously look amazing in an aquarium!

[rockbrain]

Welcome to the forum from Central California and welcome back to the hobby. I don't have the answers to your questions but I'm sure others on here will. I can tell you it's probably not a good idea to tumble the Bloodstone and Lapis together. The Lapis is pretty soft. Also, don't discount the fact that some rocks may have a beneficial change to your aquarium parameters. I just took down my last planted aquarium, 125 gallon with CO2 injection, a few months ago.

[chris1956]

Welcome from Missouri.   

[titaniumkid]

Hi! I'm curious about the bear tumbler, so when it arrives please keep us updated. And also love the idea of using rocks for scaping aquariums and terrariums.

I have no experience tumbling peacock ore. I didn't even know it could be tumbled and had to look up pics. Maybe something to be aware of is that it contains copper, and you probably already know this but copper can be toxic to many aquatic animals so if any leaches from the rocks it might be disastrous. Water quality such as pH will affect whether metals leach from rocks. Maybe sealing it in resin will prevent this, but it's probably something to keep in the back of your mind.

Hope your back feels better and I look forward to seeing what you do

[pebblesky]

Welcome! Does water not make every rock look so beautiful? If you are going to put stones in the fish tank, I would suggest only tumble them in stage 1 to remove the wear and tear of the surface and round them up, then put them into water directly. I don't think polishing them is necessary.

[vegasjames]

Welcome from Southern Nevada.

Tumbling either bornite or chalcopyrite, both referred to as peacock ores, will grind off the iridescent tarnish.

I have experimented with a scrap piece of natural bornite I find here in Nevada. Tried dilute hydrochloric acid, and also tried household bleach with OK results. Heating the stone first can also help. If I soaked them for a while, that may have helped as well. After soaking, let dry, then rinse.

Have heard people using Iron Out successfully.

Or another common practice is to put the stone in vinegar with a piece of scrap copper and let it sit in the solution for a week or two. Keep an eye on it as to not over do it.

I have not tried nitric acid yet, although in theory it should work great as nitric acid is a great oxidizer, and is found naturally in the air from the reaction of nitrogen oxides with moisture. So, it may be the acid, or one of the acids that tarnish peacock ores in nature.

If you are not familiar with nitric acid though, I highly recommend avoiding it. It is one of the more dangerous acids to work with. I have worked with it various times, and had quite a scare once when I substituted something very similar to mix with the acid for my meteorite etching. It got real hot, real fast and was bubbling and steaming. Since nitric acid forms explosives with many things including sugars, I ran outside with it real fast and put it in the empty swimming pool just to be on the safe side. Also want to make sure not to get it on your skin. Not as nasty as sulfuric acid in this case, but bad enough.

As for putting it in the aquarium, coating it with epoxy resin may work, but it definitely should not be put in raw as copper salts are highly toxic to many fish and plants. Crustaceans and sharks are especially sensitive to copper. Interestingly, horseshoe crabs have a green, copper based blood instead of iron based blood making their blood bright blue. Horseshoe crabs though are not actually crabs, which are crustaceans. They are chelicerates, making them more related to spiders.

Anyway, copper salts are commonly used to kill invasive aquatic animals and plants in ponds and waterways, so putting these ores in aquariums uncoated would be a bad idea. I don't know if an epoxy coating will affect the tarnish, especially over time.

[hummingbirdstones]

Welcome from Northern Arizona!

[calura]

Jun 20, 2024 14:24:27 GMT -5 rockbrain said:

I can tell you it's probably not a good idea to tumble the Bloodstone and Lapis together. The Lapis is pretty soft.

Oh no, I don't intend to tumble them together. I intend to tumble each type of stone only with its own type, as I purchase them. I merely started off buying two types at once.

And yes some rock can indeed be beneficial. But most of my aquariums are soft water, Amazon-type biomes, and *most* rocks don't work well with that because they harden the water. And copper can be bad if I have crustaceans, or if the concentration of it gets too high for a fish-only tank.

It is also important that the resin be absolutely fully cured, which takes several weeks (not the 24-48 hours most of them claim). After that initial "cure" that most manufacturer's claim, the resin can still absorb some liquid and turn white and even flexible again. So it has to sit for several weeks to be fully impenetrable and safe for an aquarium.

[calura]

Jun 20, 2024 21:10:35 GMT -5 vegasjames said:

Welcome from Southern Nevada.

Tumbling either bornite or chalcopyrite, both referred to as peacock ores, will grind off the iridescent tarnish.

Yes, this is why I wanted to find a way to re-tarnish it after tumbling to smooth it out.

Very aware of copper issues though. One creature I raise is a rare crayfish known as Cherax Pulcher. Copper would kill them instantly. And as I replied to someone else above, most of my tanks are soft water with low PH. Most rocks will release minerals into the water that will turn the water hard with a high PH. But also mentioned above, the resin has to cure for 6-8 weeks to be truly water-safe, no matter what the resin bottle says!

We live on 3 acres, so I may get a little plastic kid's pool and try the nitric acid after all. But this is definitely the info I was looking for! Thanks!

[calura]

Jun 20, 2024 20:20:21 GMT -5 pebblesky said:

Welcome! Does water not make every rock look so beautiful? If you are going to put stones in the fish tank, I would suggest only tumble them in stage 1 to remove the wear and tear of the surface and round them up, then put them into water directly. I don't think polishing them is necessary.

This makes sense. Probably not a good idea to polish them if I will have to resin them to water-proof them. The resin would essentially polish them. But definitely have to tumble them to round them out a bit. I have some delicate species like Sewellia Loaches that could get scraped up on rougher stones.

[calura]

By the way, I am in Georgia. Near Atlanta :-)

And yes I will give reports on the Bear tumbler. The reviews look good already. At least it's cute, though!

[pebblesky]

Jun 20, 2024 23:36:35 GMT -5 calura said:

Jun 20, 2024 20:20:21 GMT -5 pebblesky said:

Welcome! Does water not make every rock look so beautiful? If you are going to put stones in the fish tank, I would suggest only tumble them in stage 1 to remove the wear and tear of the surface and round them up, then put them into water directly. I don't think polishing them is necessary.

This makes sense. Probably not a good idea to polish them if I will have to resin them to water-proof them. The resin would essentially polish them. But definitely have to tumble them to round them out a bit. I have some delicate species like Sewellia Loaches that could get scraped up on rougher stones.

May I ask why you have to resin the stones to water-proof them? Most rocks won't be hurt if soaked in the water, and if you want to pat them dry one day you always can.

[titaniumkid]

Jun 20, 2024 23:32:18 GMT -5 calura said:

Jun 20, 2024 21:10:35 GMT -5 vegasjames said:

Welcome from Southern Nevada.

Tumbling either bornite or chalcopyrite, both referred to as peacock ores, will grind off the iridescent tarnish.

Yes, this is why I wanted to find a way to re-tarnish it after tumbling to smooth it out.

Very aware of copper issues though. One creature I raise is a rare crayfish known as Cherax Pulcher. Copper would kill them instantly. And as I replied to someone else above, most of my tanks are soft water with low PH. Most rocks will release minerals into the water that will turn the water hard with a high PH. But also mentioned above, the resin has to cure for 6-8 weeks to be truly water-safe, no matter what the resin bottle says!

We live on 3 acres, so I may get a little plastic kid's pool and try the nitric acid after all. But this is definitely the info I was looking for! Thanks!

Many metals become bioavailable and are leached into water at low pHs, while they form more insoluble precipitates at high pHs, but if the resin stops your water from interacting with the rocks then that is a great way to get interesting rocks into the aquarium while keeping the fishes safe. Pretty ingenious, actually. Are resin coatings often used in aquariums?

[1dave]

In high school we had a nitric acid incident in chem class. there was a beaker containing nitric, one of the kids dropped a penny in it. immediately brown vapors formed, started filling the class room, evacuated the entire school. just one penny made the air in the whole school room unbreathable.

[calura]

Jun 21, 2024 0:14:00 GMT -5 pebblesky said:

Jun 20, 2024 23:36:35 GMT -5 calura said:

This makes sense. Probably not a good idea to polish them if I will have to resin them to water-proof them. The resin would essentially polish them. But definitely have to tumble them to round them out a bit. I have some delicate species like Sewellia Loaches that could get scraped up on rougher stones.

May I ask why you have to resin the stones to water-proof them? Most rocks won't be hurt if soaked in the water, and if you want to pat them dry one day you always can.

Although titaniumkid quoted me instead of you, he had the answer.

Many rocks leach their minerals into the water. Sometimes this is good - limestone will add calcium to the water and raise the PH. That's good if you have a tank for, say, African cichlids, which requires a high PH and hard water. But sometimes it's bad - such as copper which can kill invertebrates like snails and crayfish. Iron is sometimes good, but only in low concentrations. Soft, acidic water is what most of my fish live in, but it usually contains very few minerals (or TDS - Total Dissolved Solids) at all. 

So to just throw a rock in without knowing the minerals it contains, AND the properties of those minerals, is dangerous. I could always look up the properties of every rock that I get and tumble, but that can be a very long list, and I'm usually busy trying to study the different diseases and germs that infect fish, instead. So to play it safe without studying every last single one of them, I can coat them in resin to keep the chemicals from leaching out - or in!

[calura]

Jun 20, 2024 18:33:23 GMT -5 titaniumkid said:

Hi! I'm curious about the bear tumbler, so when it arrives please keep us updated. 

The bear tumbler came in late, and actually arrived today instead of yesterday, so my report is late. They also made a mistake and sent TWO instead of one! They said keep the extra, so my husband is going to send it to his niece and nephew for Christmas later this year.

So it's a cute little bear face with the buttons right on his face. His nose is the power button. His cheeks are the timer and speed buttons.

The belt for the tumbler claims to be capable of supporting 8 lbs and "more durable" than most tumbler belts. It came with one extra belt, four stages of grit (two grinding, two polishing) and a few rocks for tumbling. The barrel is 3lbs, and almost completely made of rubber, inside and out. Tire-quality rubber. The only exception is a metal plate on the side that opens and closes, but it has rubber all around it to protect it from the water inside the tumbler, too. So there's not really a threat of rust. I remember the one I grew up with had a metal barrel, but don't recall much else.

My husband got REALLY interested once he saw the sample rocks they sent, and was eager to try it out! At least 6 of the pieces were my favorite stone - tigers eye. I did recall my childhood tumbler being loud, so we set it up in our laundry room on the opposite side of the house from our bedroom. It gives suggested speeds and times, but you can really pick whatever you want. I'm going with 3 days per stage, and then check it afterwards.

The second, third, and fourth stages suggest adding plastic chips. Anyone have any input on that? Is it a good idea, bad idea, good for only certain stones, etc.?

It does appear to wobble a good bit, but I'm thinking a lot of that was actually just the reflection on the metal plate exaggerating the wobble and it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

All in all, it looks good and solid, especially for a "beginner" tumbler. I'm not ashamed of the $50 I spent on it!

And although I don't usually like to "advertise" products, since someone did ask specifically about it, here's a link to it, although it is SOLD OUT as of this posting. They'll probably get more soon though.

www.temu.com/goods_snapshot.html?goods_id=601099555287694

[jasoninsd]

calura - There's been some great answers to your questions...and if you search "media" on the forum, you'll get a ton of information on adding media to tumbles.

Welcome to the forum from South Dakota! (I spent time in Georgia...but I didn't get to see much since I was at Ft. Benning! LOL)

[titaniumkid]

Some people love plastic beads, others don't and prefer to use ceramic media or small rocks. You should be able to search the forums to find out what people prefer and why. I don't really like them. I have concerns about plastic pollution, plus they get everywhere very easily (maybe it's just me and I'm clumsy and in denial about this fact so I'm blaming the plastic). I use ceramic media instead, but ideally I would like to find a good source of small rocks that look nice when tumbled, like others here have.

If you choose to use plastic beads, don't re-use the beads in a later stage because they can carry grit and cause contamination. For example, if you use beads in stage two, you can re-use those same beads next time you run stage two, but don't use those exact same beads in stage three. Instead, use fresh beads.

Hope this helps.

[1dave]

Contact jamesp also in Georgia, can tell you anything about tumbling.
See what he has written in the Tumbling Section.

[jamesp]

Jun 23, 2024 13:57:40 GMT -5 1dave said:

Contact jamesp also in Georgia, can tell you anything about tumbling.
See what he has written in the Tumbling Section.

Been a long time Dave. Cranked up rotary for first time in a year with a load of 6 pounds of glass a couple of days ago.
Note worn down shaft ends. Hey the bearings are still spinning !