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Question:

Smoothing thick quartz gravel?

I was considering adding Kuhli loaches or pygmy corydoras to my betta/shrimp tank, the problem is I have thick quartz grabel which is too sharp for them.The pet store worker told me it would be fine if I rinced the gravel lots of times with high pressure water (shower), but I have doupts. Is this true? If not is there another way to smooth out quartz?It's been in this tank for around 4 months now.

Answer:

This is a difficult question to answer because quality plays a big role in the value- especially for amethyst. Smoky quartz is fairly inexpensive- perhaps one dollar per carat. It can cost more if it is exceptionally beautiful or is intricately cut or carved. Amethyst is a difficult stone to separate from synthetic amethyst. It is hard to tell a real one from a laboratory-grown crystal. But real amethyst can be worth a few dollars per carat for typical natural material all the way up to several hundreds of dollars per carat for very fine material from Zambia or Siberia that shows a red-flash effect.

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