Is colored gravel truly toxic?

[Tarynntula]

Fish police like to say colored gravel will “leech toxins” into your tank, but I haven’t seen any actual evidence other than some anecdotes. Is there any truth to this? 

[gardenman]

I've never seen it. I used a fairly coarse black gravel in with my goldfish a few years back and goldfish being goldfish would mouth the gravel and eventually chewed off most of the black leaving just some odd grey looking gravel in its place. They lived a normal life and never had any unusual issues. I wouldn't worry about it.

[ChefConfit]

Depends.

Actual aquarium gravel you could get at a pet store made for use in fish tanks? Not gonna leech toxins. 

Colored decorative gravel meant for... I actually don't know what it's meant for but you can find it at craft stores or the dollar store in the isle with the fake plants. That kind could because it's not meant to be used in aquariums, but most is probably still safe.

I think the colored gravel is toxic thing mostly comes from when we still used lead based paint in everything, but I could be wrong. 

[Brian]

I guess we need to buy things like this from a Pet Supply or Pet Store.   Not craft stores?   
 

[CT_]

Lets address the real issue.  colored gravel is like 20$.  fruity pebbles cereal is 3$ and a tube of epoxy is 5$ so you're wasting 12$ buying the gravel.

[Goosedub]

4 minutes ago, CT_ said:

Lets address the real issue.  colored gravel is like 20$.  fruity pebbles cereal is 3$ and a tube of epoxy is 5$ so you're wasting 12$ buying the gravel.

This may be the funniest comment I have seen in a long time!

[FrozenFins]

 I had a blue gravel in my first aquarium, and had 0 problems. 

I think why people may think that it leaches toxins is because sometimes when you remove the gravel you will see what looks like "blue water" at the bottom. I saw it on a youtube video, but I can't remeber what video. All though there doesn't seem to be much eveidence supporting this claim as MANY aquarists./ fish keepers (maybe even most) use the fruity tooty gravel or just a colored gravel with no problems.

[Steph’s Fish and Plants]

I’ve used colored gravel with no issues for years. I think rinsing it before putting it in the aquarium is a good idea to get rid of any dusts or anything from the factory, and perhaps there are toxins on it that got rinsed off. But at the end of the day, as long as stuff is rinsed I think it’s fine. Same with decor. I do think that @ChefConfitbrings up a good point about gravel source. Mines always been from a pet store and designed for aquariums, so it’s definitely possible that ones from other sources are toxic.

[Tanked]

If memory serves, There was similar post here some months back about someone buying "Sea Glass" from Amazon.  When it arrived it was marked "not for aquarium use".   The difference being that real sea glass is naturally tumbled glass, and the craft store variety is often acid etched.  Likewise, Some colored gravel is dyed or painted with ???  and intended for non aquarium decoration.  Colored aquarium gravel from the LFS is coated with a nontoxic acrylic or epoxy shell. 

[Daniel]

Here was the sea glass post @Tanked mentioned:

 

[Chiclid addict]

I’ve never had a problem with this but I’ve also never heard of this issue I had a convict chiclid that I had in a 20g and it would pick up the gravel chew on it or dig and it has never had issues 

[Hobbit]

I was looking into some quartz accent pebbles for a tank (just dreaming here) and the seller I was looking at had lots of different colored stones. They specifically noted when some stones were colored using dyes and when something was pure quartz. Other sellers weren’t so clear, despite using “aquarium” and “fish tank” in their search terms. (This was on Etsy.)

I think the main thing is to know what you’re getting. If you’re buying it from a pet store and it’s labeled for fish then it’s going to be fine. 😊