Adding flourite

[prakash]

Can this be done when there is water in the tank? Im giving the tank an overhaul and dont want to empty it completely as im keeping some of the fish and dont have the time to do a total refill. I want to grow a few specimen plants but not using co2. I want to add some flourite sand and mix it with my black sand to help the plants

Can i do it with water in if i rinse it well before hand a bit of cloudiness i can handle, as a new spirulina food i just used caused my water to go milky for days!!!

[Star_Rider]

you'd have to rinse it a lot!! and even then it may cloud the water.

[zzyzx85]

Yes, you can add Flourite when there is still water in it.

In regards to the cloudiness, let it dry after rinsing it. I don't have any experience with Flourite sand but if it's anything like regular Flourite, it'll still be cloudy but not as bad as adding it straight in.

[luckydud13]

I just bought some flurite to replace the pool sand, and what I am going to do is take the tank, dump the sand out in my mom's garden :devil: then clean the tank, because it has a little algae, then rinse the substrate in a bucket alot then put it in. I can carry my tank because its only about 20 30 lbs :)

[prakash]

Yeah but this is 90gal and im keeping half the fish but redoing my decor as im bored of it and its alot of work. So making it more simple and putting two main shoals in cardinals and adding to my harleqiuns, but my plecos and clown loach poss my boesmani rainbows will stay too.

[gmh]

It'll get pretty messy even with the rinsing and drying beforehand. I think the fish would be OK however. I have stirred up my substrate pretty good in the past and the fish always seemed to handle the cloudy water OK.
Idealy I would try to catch at least most of them and put them in a couple of buckets before adding the substrate.

[Fordtrannyman]

All the sand will eventually settle to the bottom. Might as well just put the Flourite as a top layer.

Rinse and dry like previously mentioned.
Drain as much water as possible from the aquarium.
Place some of the dried Flourite in a plastic bag.
*How much you put in the bag depends on how strong you are.
Hold the bag (with your dominant hand) close to the area you want the substrate.
Grab a corner of the bag a rip a hole allowing the substrate to slowly pour out.
Ideally moving side to side and back and forth to spread the Flourite.
Refill with a Phython or siphon tube. Or fill with a bowl or plate on the bottom so as to not disturb the substrate too much. This allowed me to have a minimal amount of cloudiness. All the fish were/are fine.

[prakash]

most are coming out anyway, what wont is my clown plecos, bn plecos, 4 small clown loach, a young syno hybrid, ram pair, 12 harlequins and 10 indian drape fin barbs (google they are quite new) The ornate rainbows red rainbows and clown barbs, another syno, giant danios and various killis will leave. To be replaced by 30 cardinals and 15 more harlequins and a apisto pair prob agazzi

[pam916]

It seemed like I rinsed my flourite forever, but my tank wasn't cloudy so I guess it was worth it. What does letting the flourite dry before putting it in the tank do?

[zzyzx85]

It's seems to be the trick to not having cloudy water with Flourite.

[prakash]

so basically rinse, dry and add. May go for the larger grain black stuff as my clown loaches find it too easy to dig up the plants in sand. Want to try some easy carpet plants it may give them a better hold

What should i try? I have two 48 T5 bulbs of 10,000K and 6000K i think a total of 70watts