Flourite Cloudy - How Long?

[Booswalia]

Hi all,
I set up my tank yesterday using 100% Flourite which had been rinsed some, but not enough to wash away all the "good stuff".
It wasn't easy to lift water to the height of my 25 tall, (I'm not very big), and therefore a lot of splashing took place even though I did use a bowl.

I did this yesterday morning and today the tank is still VERY cloudy. I can hardly see the back of the tank.

Any idea how long this is going to take to settle?

Thanks.
Shirley

[djlen]

Oh, Shirley, Shirley, Shirley what did you do?! Shoulda washed it more thoroughly. Oh well, now you have to let it sit for another day or so, unless you want to start your filter, but then you'll have a bunch of dust to clean out of it. It's a shame that you didn't have a hose to fill the tank. I just set one up without washing at all, but I put the Flourite into the tank dry, arranged it and then put newspaper across the entire bottom and filled very slowly with the hose. Got a slight cloudiness, but it was clear enough to run the filter and clear it completely over night.
Good luck....
Len

[Starry]

Ouch, I REALLY don't envy you. My fourite turned into mud as well, it was horrible! Even though I washed it quite a bit, in small portions too! I can't really tell you how it went away, but it did :) Give it a few days. If you have plants in already (as I did), they will all look brown. I think I just shook it off the plants, and tried to siphon off as much as I could during water changes. It still gets stirred up when I replant something, I find it's a lot of pain to work with.

[Booswalia]

:rolleyes: It was just too hard to hold the water and pour it slowly. (I really never thought I would get such a good workout from this aquarium hobby.)

Luckily my plants are not in there. I have them in a bucket while I wait for the Flourite to settle.

Have I created a monster?????

Is it going to stir up like this every time I move something or disturb it a little????

I can see it now...... dirtly little fish lookin' like they just crawled out of the garden. Oh, man..... (No, the fish are not in there either.)

Shirley

[Starry]

Everyone told me it would be okay once it settles, it won't stir up. Well, they LIED! But really, this is the worst of it. Any other redness you will get will settle within a few hours. And the fish are constantly swimming, so they don't really get covered in it. I hope it doesn't bother their gills. I didn't have any in there at first either, only after it settled.

[Tyler718]

Originally posted by Booswalia
Is it going to stir up like this every time I move something or disturb it a little????

If you are using a bucket after water changes to refill the tank then this will continue to be a problem. How big is uncertain. I have 50 /50 Flourite and sand. If I pour water from a bucket even in small amounts it will stir it up for a day or two. I use my Python to refill my 20 Tall. I let it slowly refill. This keeps it from clouding.

Dave

[nvision]

maybe that's why i spent 2 hours washing 6 bags of onyx. :(

could barely get up from the bed the next morning. ouch.

[125gJoe]

http://gordon.sourcecod.com/images/flagicons/american_flag.gif
A Vortex D-1 or the Vortex XL, depending on the size of your aquarium, will quickly and effortlessly take care of substrate cloudiness. :)

[Booswalia]

I started over last night. I removed as much water as I could and then ran the hose from outside through a window and let it trickle into the tank for about an hour. This morning the tank is nice and clear.

As for water changes..... I can't run the hose into the house in the winter.

Maybe I should just buy a long peice of tubing and use the adapter that came with my water purifier on the kitchen sink. It will take an hour or two to fill, but that's okay.

I can see it now..... just like the purifier. I forget it's running and I end up overflowing every time. :eek:

Maybe a Python is a better choice......

Shirley

[Tempest]

I've had onyx in my 10 gallon now for maybe six weeks. It does float up when I clean the tank or rearrange plants but it no longer clouds the tank. It just floats up then falls back down. The flourite in my 55 gallon had never been a real problem because I put a half inch layer of similarly colored regular small grain gravel on top of it. By the time I got to rearranging plants and disturbing the flourite, it had evidently conditioned in like the onyx has.

[djlen]

Shirley, there is an item that people use to fill water beds that looks to me to be very, very similar to a python, but doesn't have the siphon tube on the end. It is a fraction of the cost of a python and would probably do the job for you. If I was looking for something like that I would definitely get the water bed filler and then look around for a siphon tube that would fit on the end.
Len

[Starry]

I don't have any problems at all when I refill the tank after a water change. I don't know how big all of your tanks are, but mine being only a 10-gal, I make about 2 or 3 trips to the bathroom with a 2-gal bucket, each time filling it only about 1/2 to 3/4 full. This way I can hold the bucket in one hand, propped on my knee, and hold my other palm right on the water surface, under the stream of water coming from the bucket. It doesn't disturb anything, and my fish like playing in the stream as it flows off my hand. Something to try if you have a smaller thank. I know I wouldn't want to make 10 trips with a large tank though.

[Matak]

I am planning to put in 1" of Flourite covered by 1" of jet black gravel. I am going to attemp this feat without a net (meaning I will do this with fish and plants still in the tank). I really don't want to go through the muddy heartaches I've just read about so I have devised a plan:

Step 1- soak the flourite in a big plastic container for a week stirring daily.

Step 2- rinse the snot out of the flourite.

Step 3- turn on vortex filter

Step 4- scoop rinsed flourite into clear acrylic 2" tube that is resting on the existing gravel bed. Said flourite will flow down the tube and ease gently on to old gravel bed.

Step 5- level flourite gently

Step 6- repeat steps 1 through 5 with jet black gravel

I hope ;)

[Booswalia]

Matak, you forgot to mention that you'll be doing it front of a live audience. ;)

Please let us know how it works.

I put in my plants last night and things went well. The flourite stirred up a bit but the cloud is gone this morning, so I think I can live with it. My last tank had peat and compost in the lower levels and it would stirr up now and again when I transplanted, but.....not a big deal.

I've been taking pictures, but I think I'm gonna create a web page with the whole process on it.

Ooooh, would that be a live audience too?

Shirley

[Matak]

My last tank had peat and compost in the lower levels and it would stirr up now and again when I transplanted, but.....not a big deal. Mine has the same substrate. Man, it took weeks to clarify. No probs now, only when I transplant.

Looking forward to the website w/pics.

Hmmm. "Live from parts unknown,
The Daring Booswalia!"