Gravel at Home Depot?

You might be a little short (about 5lbs). Generally I just estimate it as a pound of gravel for every gallon of water, but it does largely depend on the dimensions of the tank as well. I'd be a little wary of the gravel that isn't designed especially to be used in fish tanks as it may have additional chemicals added to make it weather-proof or shiny or whatever. You should be ok as long as you rinse it really well several times though. Check out local fish stores too, a lot of them have nice looking natural gravel for sale.

Yes, they have river pebble, small and large. I used in my tank.

I asked the same question about a week ago and I was refered to local nursuries as well. Just wash the rock and don't buy anything that appears to be dyed. Good Luck

planted tank?

yeah i got 50 pounds of gravel from home depot and it filled my 55 nicely

Home Depot and Lowes sell 25 pound bags of river rock/pea gravel for about $4.00 per bag. You have to rinse it REAL good and will need to pick out a lot of limestone and old shells. It's a lot of work but if you are on a budget it will save you money.

Here's an article I wrote for another forum you you may find useful:

Buying gravel at a LFS or other retailer can be expensive. I’ve seen a 25 pound bag sell for $20.00 and a small 5 pound bag sell for nearly $3.00. You can go to your typical yard and garden/home improvement outlet (Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc.) and pay much less. I’ve paid less than $3.85 for a 25 pound bag of river rock and that included tax. I recently purchased a 25 pound bag of pea gravel for just over $4.00. If you’re prepared to put a little effort into cleaning you can save a lot of money.
Here is a step-by-step procedure I use to clean gravel.
First, you start out with your 25 pound sack of gravel.

Make sure you have several buckets and something to agitate the water with. Having something like a colander is helpful to have, too.


I like to use several different buckets to wash equal parts of gravel. Stirring a bucketful of rock can be difficult and tiring.
The gravel you buy will be dirty…real dirty. Would you want to dump this into your aquarium?

Stick your water hose down into the gravel and turn on the water. In just a few seconds you will find out just how dirty your gravel is:

Pour out the water, and repeat the process. Then repeat…and repeat. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it!
Stir the water real good:

Stir some more, pour out more water, add more…get the idea?

Now the water is starting to get clearer.

Once you get most of the dirt separated from the gravel and the water is mostly clear you can pour the gravel and water through a colander. The dirty water ends up in the bucket, and you can dump the clean gravel into another bucket.

Clean gravel:

Another thing to keep in mind ...

I had Lowes pea gravel in my tank for all of a week. During that week, my water hardness shot through the roof. My tap is 3 dkH. When I removed the gravel, my tank was at 9 dkH .

The gravel they use is mined from all over the USA. So, what is mined near you may not have any effect on water conditions. But, if you can get a handful, place it in a bowl of your water for a few days. Place plain water in another. Then test them to see if there are differences in pH, kH and gH. If there are major differences, find something else.