I stupidly followed the instructions on my bag of Seachem Fluorite Red substrate which said it DID NOT NEED TO BE RINSED. Regretting this so much. I’ve done four water changes and this it what it looks like after the fifth water change sucking the clay up from the substrate.
I have three filters running in there at the moment to try and clear it up – a HOB, a Aqueal Pat Mini internal filter and a sponge filter. I’ve also been adding Seachem Clarity.
Any other tips for what I can do? I’m worried I’m going to be stuck with a tank that looks like this every time I do a water change! 😣
Posted by Competitive-Ladder61
6 Comments
That’s so frustrating!
On the website it says you might need to rinse it (I wonder why) and also says to use something like a bowl to break the flow when adding water to avoid disturbing it as much as possible. I end up using the bowl trick no matter what substrate I’m using to minimize the particle tornado. If you’ve been adding the water as gently as possible and it’s still unbearable, I might give up and scrape it back into a bucket for some heavy rinsing but hopefully it won’t come to that.
https://www.seachem.com/flourite.php
I’d advise you to siphon all of the fluorite out and do a proper rinse. I had this and rinsed over 20 times for it to be clear.
Leave it alone for a day, don’t filter
Water flow is going to keep the fines in suspension.
Two options:
1. Turn off all flow and let it settle. Once settled it shouldn’t kick back up too easily.
2. Turn off all flow. Remove all water to get rid of the suspended fines. Wait a day for the fines in puddles to settle out. Put a plate on the substrate and gently refill pouring slowly onto the plate, then gently remove the plate. The plate will stop the refill water from kicking up new fines as you pour it in.
My tank clouded badly when I added fluorite black, I just left my filter running and it was clear in about 36hrs. Fishless cycle so I wasn’t in any rush to clear it up etc. I do have carrbon in my filters and a cloth type material covering that which may have helped. If you’re doing a foshless cycle I wouldn’t reccomend a water change as that could disturb your cycle.
I’d wait for it to settle (or whatever you want to do) and add a layer of sand about 2in deep by filling an empty water bottle with the sand and pouring it onto the fluorite to avoid stirring it up again (: this should help it not get stirred up every water change and trap the nutrients in the substrate in the substrate for the plants.
For sand I’d also reccomend malaysian trumpet snails as sand can trap decaying plant pieces and stirring the substrate up and release trapped gasses, trumpet snails drag and aerate the sand eating the decaying matter and stopping build up. They give live birth and if you over feed your tank they will have a population boom but cutting back on feeding should bring population back down.
A lot of words I apologize.. Goodluck!
That shit was the worst and I will never buy it again. I don’t even know how many times I rinsed it, used Clarity, and siphoned before it cleared up. Also I had to squeeze out the filter sponges repeatedly because there was so much silt it blocked them. I still don’t understand how it’s possible for there to be that much dust on gravel.