Flourite Pre-Wash??

[Cooter007]

I made a stupid mistake! I moved everything from my 44, 20 and 10 into a new 75! I wanted to use my substrate and decorations from my 44 and 20 in the new 75. I moved all my fish to 2 five gallon buckets with a heater and an air pump. Time being critical, I hurriedly pumped the water from my upstairs 44 to my new downstairs 75. That is when I realized that I didn’t prewash the 4 bags of Flourite I added to the 75. I created a mud puddle. I put my Eheim 2217, Eheim 2213, Mangum 350 and one HOB on the aquarium to clear the water. After I pumped all of the water out of my 44 and 20, I was committed! I had to move the fish but the water was still cloudy. The water looked a lot better today but it is still very cloudy.

Will it ever clear up??? Have a created a permanent problem by not Pre-Washing the Flourite?? I’m going to do a 50% water change Tuesday. I’m also going to clean the Eheim 2217! I have to leave the Eheim 2213 running because that is my biological filtration.

[Mightyraven]

Well it will clear up, even when I washed mine it took 2-3 days before it started looking well and thats on my 75 with a fluval 204, a penguin 330 and a magnum 350. I went through 3 micron filters in those days too! It will clear up soon. When using the Flourite the prewash is just to get the dust off cause if you wash it too well your taking away from its benefits. I'd give it another day or two and it should be ok, you may get some dust settling back down on everything if you don't have a high enough water flow, in which case some suction can take care of that or just blow it back into the water and let the filters handle it.

[Slappy*McFish]

It will clear in time..after it has settled down, you can do a series of gravel vacs to pull out the rest of the 'settled' dust.

[RTR]

IME, the tank will clear faster if you leave the filters off and let it settle out. If there is too much fine silt atop the gravel after the water clears, do a light vacuuming without digginging into the Flourite - just sucking out the surface silt - before you turn the filters on.

[Cooter007]

Originally posted by RTR
IME, the tank will clear faster if you leave the filters off and let it settle out.

I agree!! Unfortunately I did not have the luxury of waiting for everything to settle! Because I was using some of my substrate and decorations from my previous tank, I had to move quickly. I moved this fish almost immediately so I can not leave my filters off. If I would have thought this through a little better I would have put the fluorite in first, added enough water to cover the fluorite, let it settle and then added the water from my old tank! O well, you know what they say “hind site is 20/20”!

With all that said, it looks a little bit better hour by hour. I will vacuum the gravel lightly a couple of times this week.

Thanks for your replies!

[blitzen25bm]

the secret is to wash it then bake it dry.

[RTR]

If you must do a fast turn-around, it would be good to have a diatom filter of some type at hand.

[Cooter007]

Originally posted by RTR
If you must do a fast turn-around, it would be good to have a diatom filter of some type at hand.


Diatom Filter Wow! That's a new one on me, I had to look that one up. Would a Magnum350 with a Micron filter do the same thing?

[RTR]

Yup, but not as fast.