r/crystalgrowing

So, today I was cleaning the beaker and adding new solution to one of my CuSO4 crystals. I didn’t feel like filtering so I thought I had to dissolve all of the salt for the new solution. So, I started generously pouring water until every little salt crystal dissolved. After a few hours I found the crystal as if somebody got hungry and had eaten a bunch. Im pretty sure it’s due to the water I added which created a solution under the point of saturation which was indeed hungry and ate my crystal (you can see the crumbs at the bottom). Hope this was informative.

In this post I described how I was trying to make a crystal, and this came out when i late-checked one flask and this came out, what is that??

(post : https://www.reddit.com/r/crystalgrowing/s/1OPZw2JYJU )

Made supersaturated solution and left it in quiet place for around 2 months

7cm diameter of the beaker

How do you prevent crystallization of parasites on main crystal and on the bottom of the beaker??

I'm a geologist experimenting with crystal growth as a way to explore practical crystallography outside the usual thin-section/mineral-identification setting.

I started with CuSO₄·5H₂O and prepared a filtered saturated solution by dissolving the salt in hot water, followed by slow cooling and evaporation at room conditions.

Rather than suspending the seed crystal, I decided to leave it resting on the borosilicate-glass bottom of the beaker. The idea was to observe how a crystal develops when growth occurs from a substrate, somewhat analogous to mineral growth along a cavity/vug or vein wall.

I've been recording the crystal dimensions and morphology at regular intervals.

Initial seed — 23/07: (3rd pic)

1.1 × 0.7 × 0.2 cm

27/07: (2nd pic)

1.5 × 1.0 × 0.3 cm

31/07:

1.6 × 1.0 × 0.4 cm

08/08: (1st pic)

1.8 × 1.1 × 0.5 cm

The interesting part has been the change in morphology during growth. Initially, the crystal mainly expressed prismatic faces, but with continued growth additional inclined faces began developing, particularly as thickness increased.

The crystal remains transparent, and when backlit I can see what appear to be growth zones with tiny internal inclusions. I'm not calling them fluid inclusions yet—I don't have the optical characterization to confirm that—but they're interesting enough to document.

There have also been secondary nucleations on the beaker bottom and occasionally around the main crystal. I'm manually removing the parasitic crystals so that the primary crystal can continue growing under relatively consistent conditions.

I'm keeping a photographic and dimensional growth log throughout the experiment.

The goal isn't simply to grow a large crystal—I'm interested in observing how morphology, nucleation and internal structure evolve during crystal growth.

I'm using some of the crystals from my last attempt at growing transparent sulfur crystals as a seed and they are going really well. I didn't intend to make the Hopper pattern on purpose but it looks really interesting in crystals this shape (I'm still covering my solution with a cloth to slow down the evaporation of the rest though)

i want to experiment with using my sculptures as a base for crystal growth. I’m not really sure where it will take me and dont have a specific vision, but since it is a few materials I wanted to ask if any one has advice for growing on multiple materials at once? my sculptures are wood, nylon, and brass. I have leds on some but I don’t think they would survive a submersion, if someone has ideas that don’t involve a soak would love to have them.

forgive me for my lack of knowledge and thank you for any insight you can offer foto of my work for reference