Flourite issues? [urgent]

[johnlarson66]

I have three bags of this stuff in my 46 gal bow front. I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed. I also filled and emptied my tank at least 4 times. It was still cloudy and I just waited a few days and it settled down.

I have recently replanted some plant trimmings and just burying a few caused a major dust storm.

I am not sure if the stuff ever is really "clean", but the dust does settle.

 

[Rex Grigg]

Every bag of Flourite or Onyx I have ever used needed to be rinsed. Otherwise I would have the dust storm also. In fact the first bag of Onyx sand I used I did not rinse. 7 days later the tank still looked like a milkshake.

I've rinsed a LOT of bags of Flourite. I found a method that works to get the dust out. It's in my Guide. The key is water. Lots of water and something to hold in the Flourite and allow the water to carry the dust away. And not trying to rinse too much at one time.

 

[geofied]

The first time I used Flourite (regular, not red) I rinsed it and it took a week to settle. When I used this method the only substantial dust occurred after poking all the plants in.

I will add that I did not add a filter for this Onyx tank (pictures above) or the non-rinsed Flourite tank until a couple of days after I filled it. This likely allows things to settle nicely.

Here are some photos of the worst that this Onyx tank got while poking (and re-poking) 30+ stem plants in. I was using bent-nosed tweezers so I stirred up more than straights would have. This cleared after a day or so as you see in the pics with the filter.

Still no filter as you can see


Slightly different angle


Adding the filter did help clear things at this point


This is the tank after a few weeks. Messy, not much scaping, but the shrimp like it. More or less a grow-out/plant starter tank.