Epsom salt works great for growing crystals. It grows quickly and has beautiful needle shaped crystals. In this project will be growing large epsom salt crystals across the surface of rocks.

Things Needed:

• Rocks – Works best with relatively flat rocks.
• A growing container – Plastic or glass. Needs to be big enough to hold the rocks and the hot growing solution.
• 3 cups Epsom Salt
• 2 cups Water
• Pot – for boiling the water

Preparing the Rocks

To begin, you’ll want to wash your rocks. Having extra dirt on them can make the crystals fall off easier once they’ve grown. Towel them off and set them aside to finish drying.

Preparing the Growing Solution

Next you’ll want to get the water boiling. In order to get the crystals to grow well, you need to saturate the water with as much epsom salt as it will hold. Heating it up allows it to dissolve more salt.

While the water is heating up you’ll want to put the rocks into the growing container, and move the container to the location where you’ll be growing the crystals. You can move it after adding the crystal solution but it will be VERY HOT and too much movement can disrupt the growing crystals.

Once the water is boiling, turn off the stove and add 1 cup of epsom salt. Stir until it all dissolves. Keep adding salt in small increments until it stops dissolving in the water. You should still have a little bit of epsom salt left over that we will use to seed the rocks.

Final Growing Setup

Pour the crystal solution into the growing container with the rocks. If there are any crystals at the bottom of the pot try to avoid adding them to the growing container. The solution needs to fully cover the rocks preferably by a large amount. Once the water has settled, if you haven’t already, move the container to its final growing spot. Be careful. It will be HOT! 

The last thing to do is add the seed crystals. Just sprinkle them into the solution above the rocks. Make sure you don’t touch the solution since it will still be quite hot. The seed crystals should fall through the solution and land on the rocks. It’s okay if a little lands off the rocks. The largest crystals will grow from the seed crystals.

Growing the Crystals

Now you get to do a happy dance and wait. How long does it take for Epsom salt crystals to grow? Well, you should see some crystals starting to form over the next day or so, but you’ll want to let them grow longer than that. After they start forming the longer you wait to pull them out the larger they will grow. If you can be patient enough, it’s best to wait until the crystals start poking out of the top of the solution before removing them from the remaining liquid. Also, try not to move the crystals while they’re growing. It can disrupt the growth of large crystals.

Once you’ve retrieved the crystals from the container set them on a paper towel to dry, and enjoy your awesome crystals.

These crystals are really cool and easy enough for anyone to make. Have fun and show us what you manage to grow on instagram or facebook. #letsgrowcrystals Thanks for reading!

Interested in more? Check out these other common crystal growing materials.