Seachem Fluorite STILL not clean!

[Nells250]

Hello folks

I have been trying to rinse half a bag of Seachem Fluorite substrate for MULTIPLE DIFFERENT DAYS now, spaced over a couple of weeks. No matter what I do, I can NOT get the water to run clean! I won't go into the absolute mess it has made in the house each time (outdoor hose is frozen so I don't have any alternative) but WOW, does this product EVER stop producing mud and silt??

As a beginner on a budget trying to tech herself aquascaping, I am not happy that what looked like the perfect substrate to try live plants in doesn't seem usable. Especially since I ordered some new plants expecting to have the substrate ready for them. I only have small sponge filters and one immediately clogged up when I tried clearing the water with it.

Can folks who have used this stuff give me some tips/hints/info from experience? Something tells me I either got a bad bag that was never rinsed at the factory, or I would need a good mechanical filter to clear up the water, which I can't afford right now.

This new hobby is driving me nuts already... almost ready to throw everything away and stick with outdoor gardening...

 

[MaloK]

This product is uncoated so if you continue to stir it, it will continue to release dust.

When adding water to the aquarium, fill slowly to avoid disturbing the Flourite bed. Place a bowl in the aquarium and add water directly to the bowl, allowing water to overflow softly on the gravel.

Initial cloudiness is normal. and could require a couple large water change and filtering over floss for a while to eliminate.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I haven't used a planted substrate before, so take this with a grain of salt, or soil!

But they're known to be messy at first, and some leech a lot of ammonia in the first couple of weeks, requiring a lot of water changing.

Is this one that people often cap with sand in order to reduce this kind of thing?

But since you've already rinsed it many times, I'd add it to the tank now, let it settle for a while before turning the filters on, maybe move the sponges higher in the tank for a while, so they're less likely to disturb the newly added soil, and yes, use @MaloK's tips for distributing the surface area when adding water to avoid stirring it up too much.

It would require a lot more filter cleanings at first - remember to rinse the filters in old tank water, or at least declorinated water, to avoid killing off beneficial bacteria with chlorine.

Don't lose hope! This hobby can have annoying and deeply frustrating moments, but take some deep breaths and take a break if it's bugging you, then come back to it. I know I had moments at first when I wanted to chuck it all in, but I'm glad I stuck it out through those rough moments! You can do it.

 

[Nells250]

If I could run the hose outside this would be easier to try and fix!

Our plumber came today to snake out the bathtub drain. It has been slow since I was a kid but lately water just sits for hours. He said the clog was down in the basement... I was praying he didn't say "what's all this red stuff in the pipe???", since I made a HUGE mess in the tub during this battle.

Instead, I need to make sure hair never falls out of my head during a shower ;-)

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

If I could run the hose outside this would be easier to try and fix!

I still haven't read the instructions for that brand, but does it say to wash until it runs clear? Bit worried you might be overdoing it and washing out all the good planty nutrients you bought the planted substrate for!

Instead, I need to make sure hair never falls out of my head during a shower ;-)

Oh my, if you ever find a solution for this, let me know! I have long hair, and while it's fine, there's also a lot of it, and every single shower, I have to rinse the bathtub and clear the plughole after of long hair. I honestly don't know how I manage to lose so much hair, and not be balding!


ETA: You can get little drain protectors that will let the water run down the plughole, but catch things like most of the hair, so you can just clean those, and not have to have the plumbing snaked so often! Just in case it helps.

 

[MaloK]

Enzyme based drain cleaner used for septic tanks will digest almost anything. Even cloth lint.
If you love fresh coffee and don't have a septic tank. Dropping the marks in your sink will help keep your drain going forever.

I agree with Adorabelle, with washing off too much of the nutrients from your substrate.

 

[Uberhoust]

I have gone through what you are going through with Florite Sand. There is a lot of dust with the Florite products, in the end you will end up with some of it in the water column. This is the process I use when rinsing it.

1. Take a one gallon pail and fill it quarter full with sand. Size of pail doesn't matter but larger amounts take more time between re-loading the bucket.
2. Tilt the bucket at 20 to 30 degrees off the vertical so the water would run away from you.
3. Run a hose right into the bucket and adjust the flow so that the vast majority of the substrate stays in the bottom half of the bucket, stirring it around with your hand. The "waste" is the fines that overtop the bucket, you control the particle size by the water flow and the stirring. Make sure you are always turning over the material in the bucket.
4. For each bucket charging continue till the water runs mostly clean, will never be fully clean. (for me to do florite sand for a 4 foot square tank bottom took about 2 hours of rinsing). If you find the water does not get clean reduce the amount you put in the bucket each time.
5. Do not allow the waste water to go into your drains. (seems like you have already discovered this).

In the winter where I live if I have to clean sand, I will use my utility sink, or any sink but then place the rinse bucket into a plastic tub that is less tall than the bucket but making sure the water from the bucket flows into the plastic tub, the currents in the plastic tub are less allowing more dust to settle before going into the sink, so that the majority will not go down the drain. You still have to be super careful when allowing this material to go down the drain but using a secondary basin, the plastic tub, captures the majority of the particles that may settle in your drains. Generally this is an outside activity.

 

[Nells250]

Hey, we have visual aids! Diagrams always help! The secondary tub is a good idea.

I see what you all mean about possibly rinsing TOO much. I did read somewhere that the very fine "mud" sort of settles to become a layer in itself.

I just put some of what I have rinsed so far into two small terra cotta pots and attempted to plant two plants into them. So far they haven't floated away, and are in one of my two little test-tanks. I allowed the water to slooooowly absorb into the pot and substrate, then placed them on the bottom. It helped that I covered the drain holes with bits of French press coffee/cold brew bags. It prevents stuff from floating out.

re: drain protectors... tried those, but they only slowed the slow drain more! Dino the plumber said standard drain decloggers do nothing, but the foaming types are better than nothing, and once a month might help to slow the buildup. My boyfriend uses a simple chemical (the name just went right out of my head... possibly copper sulfate) in his because of roots that grow into the pipes out by the street. THEN there's the settling of the houses after 90 years, etc.

 

[Uberhoust]

@Nells250 Given what you say about your plumbing, I would do my best to not rinse sand or gravel inside. I have run a garden hose out a door in the winter to do some rinsing.

There are a few points of view on how thoroughly to rinse gravel and sand. Personally, I like to have all the particles within a tight range of sizes, so I rinse as many fines out as possible (fines being any sand particles less than the size I want, ie .1mm and smaller). More uniform particle allows deeper circulation of water in the substrate, and if you reuse your substrate it is easier to clean it after a large teardown of a tank. It also makes it possible to do substrate changes without draining the tank entirely. On the other hand the fines can contain a lot of minerals such as iron that the plants can use, and in addition the fines mixed with the target particle sizes make, I believe, a better rooting bed for your plants, but with deeper substrates you also have more opportunity to develop a hydrogen sulphide. I have dug a lot of soil pits in lake and river environments and will say that the entirely uniform particle sizes tend to occur only in special environments such as surf zones and rapid river channels, so my preference is not necessarily representing the most natural approach.

I still use florite sand in one tank and the plants do very well with it.

 

[Nells250]

Oooooook, so here's the deal. This afternoon I got fed up and made a decision. I emptied out the 2.5 gallon test tank and put the Fluorite on the bottom. THEN I added some nice sandy substrate I picked up in my price range OVER it. When I added the water, it did silt up but only a little. Back in went the new sponge filter, little heater, and test plants.

So I am one step closer to figuring out actual in-substrate plants! I'll try to get a decent pic once the water clears up... IF it does.

 

[Sleeveless]

I use the Flourite. I would put it in a strainer and rinse. Took a while since the strainer is only so large. But I had minimal haze doing it that way. That was after I learned my lesson the first time and the water was brown. This time no issue.

 

[Nells250]

UPDATE: I decided I (might) want to change a tank's substrate to black, so because it is summer and I can use the garden hose, I picked up another bag of Flourite. This time, their BLACK stuff, not the standard red-brown that I had so much trouble with before.

The guy at the fish shop even said "be prepared to rinse...".

Wellp, I picked up a medium size plastic bucket and lid from a hardware store to help contain the stuff during washing. Short story short, this stuff has almost NO DUST compared to the other color! WOW! I was able to accomplish the rinse on the upstairs porch without getting dusty stains everywhere!

SO if you are reading this thread because you might want to try Seachem's Fluorite gravels, my limited experience is that the standard stuff is MURDER to rinse, and the black stuff is A DREAM to rinse! Why? Dunno!