Thoughts on Flourite/Flourite Red

I often shop at petsolutions.com, they are usually pretty cheap plus I get my stuff typically next day since they are in the same state. They sell the flourite 15# bags for 13.99 but they do charge 'freight' rates but it was still cheaper for me than local. Check out http://www.petsolutions.com/Flourite+Flourite+Red-I-10104950-I-C-41-C-.aspx

For rinsing stuff I typically use a large old basket from a steamer. I started to use this on the flourite but I determined with the large amount I had it would be over 10 hours or more of cleaning at the current pace. So instead I built a 2 foot by 4 foot frame with wood and an 'eggcrate' diffuser (whats on commercial flourescent fixtures) and then layed some fine screen material over it. With my garden hose sprayer I could then clean a whole bag in minutes. Although I bet most ppl dont have all this stuff laying around lol.
 
DevonBlaine said:
I'm also going to be using flourite. I am glad you guys said to rinse it b/c i would have thought not to (i wouldnt want to rinse good parts of it away). If I would have found it sooner I probably would have gotten eco complete:
Contains all the necessary mineral nutrients for luxuriant aquarium plant growth PLUS beneficial bacteria to rapidly convert fish waste into natural food for your aquatic plants.

This site should also help you quite a bit.


I believe aquasoil is used in crops. I'm not sure if it would hold to gether in an aquarium or not.
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The Eco-Complete looks great, but my problem is going to be that I will still have my water in my tank when I add whatever substrate that it is that I am going to add. I wonder with this condition which of these is going to work best so I don't wind up with a dust cloud in the tank for a period of time (not too mention my filtration).

Any thoughts if this is going to be a problem for me? I will probably do a water change when I add the substrate, but I'll probably only have about 15/20g's out of a 90g tank when this happens (unless I absolutely have to take more out).
 
If you're doing a total substrate change, you have two options (and I really mean ONLY two options. The first is to empty the tank completely, add substrate, then refill the tank using a plate or bowl to diffuse the water so as not to disturb whatever dust has either been created due to moving it around, or whatever you missed. Your second option is to go out and drop $90 on a Vortex DE (diatomaceous earth) filter, and $10 on a box of DE from Wal-Mart. The clouding from both the removal of old substrate (already full of fish detrius), and the addition of a new, potentially dusty substrate make it implausible to to attempt doing it without one of the above methods.
 
Goatman said:
If you're doing a total substrate change, you have two options (and I really mean ONLY two options. The first is to empty the tank completely, add substrate, then refill the tank using a plate or bowl to diffuse the water so as not to disturb whatever dust has either been created due to moving it around, or whatever you missed. Your second option is to go out and drop $90 on a Vortex DE (diatomaceous earth) filter, and $10 on a box of DE from Wal-Mart. The clouding from both the removal of old substrate (already full of fish detrius), and the addition of a new, potentially dusty substrate make it implausible to to attempt doing it without one of the above methods.
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I'm familiar with DE (use to live in Southern CA and had to use it with our Pool during major filter maintenance), but I already have fish in this tank (which is why the water is gonna need to still stay in). They cannot be moved out of the tank - though they are still small enough to do so - perhaps I need to rethink this...

The other problem I thought would occur with a complete water change is a new cycle starting back up? I'm going to be removing my 2 Emperor's from the tank and going with an XP3 to eliminate the surface level agitation so I'm wondering what is going to be the best thing to do here. Should I just completely remove my water, add substrate/plants, and put fish back in? Or is that going to cause the tank to go through it's Nitrogen cycle all over again (remember - I'm removing the Biological filter(s) that have been on it for the past 3 months, and will be going with something new to accomodate the CO2 system that is also getting ready to be added).
 
I've killed fishes in the past by trying to add substrate to an existing tank so I would recommend against it.

1. remove fishes to a tub or cooler
2. drain the tank and keep the biological filter media moist
3. change the substrate and plant
4. refill tank and keep both old and new filters running to establish a colony in the new filter without having to go through another cycle. A complete water change won't cause another cycle, removing the biological filter media will.
 
Last time I swapped tanks to my 75G I bought a $7 55gallon tote from wallmart and siphoned it with half water from the existing tank and added half new water (so it was basically like a 50% water change). I also added about half back into the 75G tank but not sure if it was really necessary or not. It is tough trying do swap substrates, basically the same amount of work of swapping the whole tank out.

Remember what i said above though, if your going to use the plants you mentioned above I would not try to go through all the hassle since the better substrate would not be beneficial to these. Perhaps you should just try them out first with your existing setup and if you really want to start to get into plants then maybe setup an additional tank later? Just a thought. Good luck.
 
I dunno what I am going to do just yet, but I think I may just buy all the pieces between now and next June, and then do the plant setup when I put new Muskies in next June. This batch will be going to their new perm home then, and the new fingerlings will be coming in not long after.

I think this would be best because at this point my whole concern is water quality. I want it good and I want it now! But I'll probably benefit from this part of the project when I can start over again with new water (not a new cycle), and I think one of the previous posters is right - get rid of the water - not the biofilter, and just add from there.

Thanks all!
 
I did a complete substrate change with only one casualty and here is how I did it.

I removed all the fish and threw them into a bucket and kept a blanket over them to reduce stress... Every 20 minutes i'd add 5% water into the bucket. I kept all my old water (as much as I could). I took out the whole tank and brought it downstairs. hosed it down and rinsed out all the gravel (after scooping as much of it as I could with a plastic tupperware) from the tank. I had already washed my new substrate as best I could. I added it to the tank then took my filter (kept in a wet bag.. shaking it up every once in a while to keep oxygen in there) and squeezed it out into the new tank with the water at 10% .... got it nice and dirty before introducing the rest of the water and reintroduced my fish despite the cloudyness.

I lost one fish from a heart attack but Cardinals are not very good with being moved so its a miracle I didn't lose more.

I never saw a spike in anything after the substrate change and everything was clear the next morning.
 
Oh, and I guess I didnt really clarify... I got a 55g tote for the job because I new it would be atleast a few days before they were going back in. I put the filter, heaters, etc in the 55g tote. They ended up staying in there for about 2 weeks and if I recall correctly I dint loose any fish. it was a long job since I had to do some wood work to modify the stand to go from 40G to 75G and I couldnt really do it until the old tank was off. So it was a few days on the stand mods, then a day setting up the substrate and getting temperature stabalized, then another couple days of buying and adding plants. Since the fish were doing fine I kept em out the extra week to try to get the plants going well before I started adding fish back.
 
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