My Home-Grown Ruby Crystals! Flux Gems Made by Me

I've been trying to grow crystals of ruby at home for over a year now, and I've finally had a few runs produce crystals big enough to separate and offer for sale.  These are still very small but they're big enough to see with the naked eye with beautiful sparkles and bright pink-red coloration.

Run 1 is from my first run to produce a good crop of decently-sized rubies, topping out around 2.5mm.  Many of these are platy in form, and they have good clarity and a bright pink-red color.  These were grown in a sodium-molybdenum oxide flux mix.

Run 2 is from my second run and are larger than those in run 1, with a less platy form overall but similar excellent clarity and color.  These were grown in a lithium molybdendum flux mix.

Run 3 is from my third successful run, producing my largest rubies to this point--the largest was 4.4mm, though that's in my personal collection.  Aside from being larger these rubies have a strange dark core and a pronounced pointed pyramidal crystal structure, what are sometimes called 'dogteeth' by sapphire miners.  These were grown in a sodium-tungsten-molybdenum oxide flux.

Vials contain 1-3 rubies of varying sizes, others are individually photographed.