Issue with fluval stratum...

J

jchase79

AC Members
Jun 25, 2013
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I haven't had an aquarium for years and I recently decided to try my hand at a planted 10 gallon tank for fun. My local pet store carries [FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]fluval statum so that is what I decided to use. The bag says to rinse it but the person helping me at the store said not to. I decided to rinse it a bit and have now set up the tank - only water and the fluval statum at the moment.

The issue I'm having is that the water has been dark brown for nearly two days - I thought it would settle to the bottom but it hasn't. Anyone have tips to resolve this? I tried a water change but the new water just stirred up more of the substrate and the water in dark brown again. So do I need to start over? Is there a better product that I could use without this issue?

any advice would be greatly appreciated - thanks[/FONT]
 
Do you have a filter running? Run some floss to remove the fine particulate, and the water movement will help settle the larger fines out, so long as it's not blasting into the substrate. But, what this means is that initially, when you plant something, it's going to be stirred up so be gentle. Once the setup is better established, it will clump and stick together better. It's not an easy substrate to rinse--unlike gravel or sand, you have to be SUPER gentle or you just break it down to nothing.

ETA: When I first set up a tank with it, I ended up draining the tank and refilling after Dougall filled his without creating the cloud. Place a plate on the substrate, then GENTLY pour water onto the plate until it's 3-4 inches deep. Or, pour down the side. Anything to slowly add water and distribute the force.
 
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Thanks for the reply -

I have a filter running and it looks like things are improving on day 3. The water is a bit cloudy still but normal since it's a new tank. I'll be putting some rocks and driftwood in today so it will stir it up again. Thanks for the tip about placing something like a plate on top when refilling. I'll have to try that - I'm used to gravel where this isn't an issue.
 
It's probably a little late now, but FWIW, I dripped water into the tank through a knotted air hose into a bowl or cup or something (It's been a while) and there wasn't any cloudiness at all.

another benefit was that, at the end, I had 50-100% more volume of substrate after not rinsing it... it was fairly soft and broke apart easily leading to even more dust to be rinsed.
 
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