Anyone knoe where to get natural slate rock for decor?

[kyperman]

I was in Arizona on vacation and visited a town called Cave Creek, north of Phoenix. It was located next to a small mountain called Black Mountain. It was called Black Mountain cause most of it was made up of natural black slate or shale. It was beautiful rock, but I only took a small sample home with me. Now I want more, or at least something like it to decorate my tank...BUT I CAN'T FIND ANY!!! Does anyone know where I could get some dark slate or shale? :help: :look:

 

[kveeti]

This was suggested to me by somebody locally who breeds fish. He buys slate tiles from a hardware-type store, then drops them on the ground to break them into pieces. I'm going to try it, but my concern was sharp edges (?)

 

[lioness]

I went to the local landscape supply place(where you can buy diff rocks for your garden and bricks) the guys there knew their rock.... they had every type of slate you could want. I just stuck to the green slate cause I knew that it was safe. The diff in price compaired to the LFS was 2.99 to .32 cents. I looked if over to make sure there was no visable metals mixed in and scrubed it clean in the sink. I then boiled it in pots. Looks great!

 

[Roan Art]

I know where you can get dark steatite. I have tanks full of it. Most people may find that it's rather expensive, however. Depends on what you are looking for:

Old picture of my 36g bowfront, but you can see the rocks better:

Old pic of my first 75g and rocks:

You can get bigger ones if you want.

Here's the place: http://www.BlackPearlSoapstone.com

65lb box for 89$ plus shipping. About 105$. You tell them how many rocks you want and they'll split them accordingly.

Some of my rocks weigh 40#

Roan

 

[YuccaPatrol]

OMG! Those rocks are super expensive! I sure hope they came with purple string !

 

[Roan Art]

OMG! Those rocks are super expensive! I sure hope they came with purple string !

Actually, if you were to try to buy slate in sizes like these, you'd be looking at the same price, if not more. Slate, steatite and soapstone and the like in these sizes are used for sculpture. Which is how I ended up using it in the first place. I had some left over and tried it in my 36g.

Roan