Fuorite

[Salt Freak]

I was wondering if any body had fluorite i'm ordering some. and heard it was really dusty so i want to know some ways on cleaning it. The tank is already established I have about three plants I plan getting tons more when i get the fluorite in. I have a bio wheel to hold the bacteria from changing substrates any suggestions

 

[Colin_BC]

Unfortunatley swapping fluorite into an established tank is going to be a very messy job. Trust me, been there, had the headache, ripped the T-shirt for car rags....

I have fluorite in 4 of my tanks. The first one I swapped ugly blue gravel for fluorite. No matter how much I rinsed, it was still cloudy for a week. The second and third tank I put it in I rinsed it load by load in a spaghetti strainer before putting it into the empty tanks (much easier!). In one of them I put a 1.5" layer of fluorite with a 1.5" layer of black gravel over top (I don't advise this, fluorite will slowly surface as plants/roots disturbed). The fourth time I used the same technique I read about for rinsing sand (and used it for sand last week on a new tahitan moon black sand 10G tank). I dumped all the fluorite in a rubbermaid roughtote tub in the bathtub. I then would fill the rubbermaid full of substrate with water from the bathtub (high water pressure). I kept filling it and then dumping the water and dust. The fluorite (or sand) stays on the bottom of the tub while all the dust leaves with the water. Keeping doing this until the water runs clean. It can take from one to several hours (spaghetti strainer method or tub rinse), so be patient. HTH

Colin

 

[Nisha]

I would recommend rinsing the flourite as thoroughly as you can. Getting 'all' the dust out is practically impossible and you'll probably be exhausted by the end of it. Be patient.

One thing I've heard is to put it out on a tray in the sun and let it bake dry after you've rinsed it. Some people have baked it in their oven but not sure at what temp or time. This helps it to hold together and help avoid floating dust.

Be prepared for the tank to be cloudy for at least a couple of days. Do a few water changes and keep your filters running full speed to get the dust out of the water. Eventually it will clear up and it will all be worth it. Your plants will love it!

I would highly recommend using a layer of gravel over the flourite or you'll disturb it everytime to do a gravel vac or add/move plants.

HTH,

~Nisha

 

[modernhamlet]

Run water from a hose into a 5g bucket with 2g of flourite in it, stirring it around a lot until you think it's pretty clean. Then wash it 5 times longer than that. Trust me. Flourite is great for plants, but it's messy, messy stuff.

 

[Salt Freak]

could I take a handful and put it in a spagetti strainer and rinser and rinse it a handful at a time. Could i also put a diatmacious earth filter on the tank to help keep it under control. The fluorite i'm using is below it is the red one.

http/www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...0&N=2004+113555

 

[modernhamlet]

Same stuff I've used in the past.

The strainer under the faucet method sounds perfect, if a bit time consuming.

Good luck!

 

[panboy]

i just switched my 46g from big gravel to flourite, about 3 weeks ago, and i thought it would only take 2-3 hours..... it took almost 6 hours, non-stop.

It took me a while to grab all my plants and put them in a bucket, and kept my biowheels under all the plants so they wouldn't dry out and die.

catching my fish wasn't to hard, and i put them in a seprate bucket with a heater. and then i cleaned the glass on my window very well since i had the chance.

i had my dad in the bathtub rinsing 2 bags of gravel all together, while i would grab small portions from the bathtub and use the speghetti strainer.
it worked well, but my back and legs were killing me

i honeslty think you can rinse flourite forever and still get it somewhat cloudy, so once it just slight started to clear up, I would throw it in the tank. i added 15 pounds of vey small gravel ( a bit larger than sand) as a top layer.

yes it is true the flourite will surface to the top of the gravel after planting, but it still looks great I think.

It will be a very time consuming process iof you alreayd have gravel like how i did, but I am extremely happy with the results.

good luck

 

[Salt Freak]

what about blackwater extract do fish like this.

 

[Discomafia]

Fishes from S.A would like it, like angels and discus... Some tetras too, not sure if all of them. But you can just do what I did and get some driftwood, the tannins will colour the water just as good, but it'll eventually get clear (the water).

However driftwood decreases ph (I think bogwood does too) so be careful, but since you're wanting to use black extract, the fish in your tank will love the soft acidic water anyways. HTH.