Anybody else used Seachem's Flourite substrate?

[njparton]

I'm going to be removing the UGF system, fish and plants from my tank on Sunday and adding a bag of Seachem's Flourite substrate to the gravel (after a good clean of both) before I finally return the plants and fish. I have 2 mature external filters that will be running throughout.

Has anybody used Flourite before, and if so, any tips?

I'm not sure whether to mix it in with the existing gravel or to try and place is as a layer underneath where the plant roots will be?

How difficult is Flourite to clean (dust etc)?

 

[Mamaschild]

I used it in one of my 40's mixed with gravel. It's a B*&%$ to clean. LOTS of dust.

As you do gravel vaccs in the tank later on, the two will become mixed, so how you place it now doesn't make much difference. Your preference.

Tips......not really. Cories are fine with it, even though it seems sharp. Mine have no problems and nice healthy barbles. It is a smaller grain then normal gravel, so you may want to use a small grain gravel with it. That's what I did and it mixed really well.

Oh, one tip.....if you use the "red", don't plant Red Lilys.....ya can't see them

 

[njparton]

Thanks, I guess I need to prepare myself for a lonnnnnng pre-cleaning session

 

[njparton]

Well it took me the best part of 1.5 hours to get the Flourite to a suitably clean state. If you're on a water meter - go for something else!!

It's in the tank now and the water cleared up after about 5-6 hours, so I guess all that effort was worth it

 

[Loveless]

I used the same substrate, dirty as hell, very hard to rinse, I rinsed for 40 min and it's still dirty so I gave up and dumped everything in. Took 2 days for everything to settle even with the repeated rapid change but don't give up.