Our knowledge of various compounds increases more effectively when they are studied within series of their homologs. Sometimes however, chemical properties of compounds in series strongly vary and growing their crystals requires serious modification of used methods. We illustrate this problem with an example of crystal growth of binary uranium pnictides of UX, U₃X₄ and UX₂ stoichiometries (X = P, As, Sb, and Bi). Uranium phosphides and arsenides of U₃X₄ and UX₂ composition could be grown by chemical vapor transport (CVT) in quartz ampoules at temperatures in range 750 - 950 ^oC, with iodine as a transporting agent and temperature gradient ~ 100 ^oC. Grown crystals were of excellent quality allowing quantum oscillations studies. UP, UAs, USb, and U₃Sb₄ could be grown by the CVT on tungsten rings heated up to temperature 1200 ÷ 1400 ^oC by induction furnace. The rings were suspended in a quartz bulb with substrates at its bottom - the coldest place in the bulb (600 ÷ 700 ^oC). Keeping a respectively low temperature of the quartz its reaction with uranium was greatly reduced. USb₂ and UBi₂ were grown by the self-flux method, where the driving force of the crystal growth was gradual decrease of temperature at rate ranging from 0.5 ^oC/hr at 1000 ^oC to 4 ^oC/hr at room temperature. Crystals of U₃Bi₄ were grown at constant temperature of 1080 ^oC in a U-Bi solution attaining over-saturation by slow evaporation of Bi due to the special construction of a graphite crucible heated with induction furnace. Various RET₄As₁₂ (T = Fe, Ru and Os; RE = La, Ce, Pr, and Nd) skutterudite crystals first-ever obtained, were grown in Cd:As or As fluxes in a self made pressure cell. Owing to high sensitivity of CeFe₄As₁₂ hybridisation gap semiconducting state on stoichiometry defects we observed a clear dependence of the grown CeFe₄As₁₂ crystals morphology on very low amount of stoichiometry defects.

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