Hi all! I've been wanting to tumble rocks for a long time. Recently I came across a good deal on a used Lortone QT66 and have some grit (Stages 1-4) and ceramic media arriving tomorrow from the Rock Shed. I have a mix of rough rocks I recently purchased, as well as some collected in California from the coast. I'm very keen to start tumbling tomorrow and am tempted to run everything I have together in one barrel (about 3/4 full), but I know there's a bit of variance in the hardness of some of my rocks, not including the ones I don't know from those I collected. Can anyone advise me if I should split this up, and if so how? With the QT66 I could run two 6lb barrels simultaneously, or do these need to be broken up into more than 2 batches?

What I know I have (purchased), with hardness:  
\- Garnet (6.5-7.5)  
\- Turquoise (Peru, 5-6)  
\- Blue Tiger's Eye (South Africa, 6-7)  
\- Amethyst (7)  
\- Labradorite (6-6.5)  
\- Black Opal (5-6.5)  
\- Blue Amblygonite (5.5-6)  
\- Aquamarine (7.5-8)  
\- Bi-Color Tourmaline (7-7.5)

Also, from among my collected rocks, I'm pretty sure some are jasper and petrified wood, and maybe some quartz, but I don't know anything else. The one written on with Sharpie is from Los Hospitales, part of the Camino Primitivo in Spain, which I hiked with my dad in 2024.

Thanks in advance for any help for a newbie!

Single Batch or Split by Hardness?