# will flourite cloudiness hurt fish and plants?



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

Hi there--
I have got a major cloud in my tank from flourite. I have 50 flourite and 50 gravel. I waited a week for the initial cloud to clear, then I added lots of plants and four rainbow fish and one yo-yo loach. 
Well when I planted it kicked up soooo much dust! I'm quite sure I didn't rinse the flourite good enough! It's been six days since I planted and It's still real bad! There's red dust all over the plants, and I have done a few water changes. Will this dust hurt the plants and fish? 
Also I should mention that my tank is a 46 bow, and I have an emporer 280 filter. I realize this filter isn't quite good for a planted tank, and I plan on changing in the future. But for now does anyone have any suggestions on how to quickly clear the cloud??

Thanks,
Heather

P.S.-- I have tried a flocculant, Seachem Clarity, and it didn't work.


----------



## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

hehe you didn't rinse it well... :twisted: 

whew there really isn't a simple solution, you can either wait it out, for god knows how long, but if it were me, I would drain the tank down and start over before I sat and looked at a fogged up tank for weeks maybe a month+ :roll: 

In one days time most likely less, you could be looking at crystal clear water, I use flourite also, but I rinsed it well, when I filled it, it was very clear.
The fog will not hurt the plants for awhile.

sorry about your position. :?


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

thanks!
I was thinking of starting all over--but I'm so mad at the flourite I don't know if I want to put it back in!! 
If I did start over, where do I put my fishies?


----------



## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

flourite is a great substrate, don't be mad at it..lol you didn't rinse..

Fill a 5gal bucket with tank water and drop the fishies in it, they will be fine while you re-build...

you can use an old pillow case. I prefer a 5gal bucket with a 5gal paint strainer for rinsing, but you can do it with just the bucket, but keep rinsing till its all clear, do a small amount at a time, don't try to rinse and entire 5gal bucket at once.. break it down some.

Cheers & Good luck.


edit. typo..grrr


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

thanks I will do that and see how it goes. Yuck!!!


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

Okay, one question--
will starting over mess with my biological "stuff"?


----------



## Schmoop (Feb 10, 2004)

Any time I've torn down a tank, I've kept my filter media wet, and saved as much water as possible. ( How many buckets do you have?  ) My fish came to no harm, and I didn't notice any change in my chemistry. It wasn't a planted tank, mind you, and I don't know if that makes a difference. But keep your filter media from drying out because lots of helpful bacteria lives in there, and once it's dried you shouldn't use it (dead bacteria=decomposition=ammonia). This might be unnecessary, but if I was going to have my filter unplugged for more than a couple hours, I'd try to set it up to run, say into a bucket filled with tank water...just to keep the water flowing so it didn't stagnate.

PS I'm having the same fun with flourite right now.


----------



## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Before tearing down everything I would try a really big water change. Put your fish into a bucket as suggested, with the existing tank water, then remove as much as water as possible. When filling up the tank, be very patient. Use some kind of tissue, bag, or saucer that distributes the water very gently. Especially for the first few inches/cm of water, add it very slowly.

Another thing you could try is to get some batting to stuff in your filter, this holds a lot of particles, but it will still take a while to clear up.

Yet another solution is filtration with diatomaceous earth, will filter the water glass clear in an hour or two. Perhaps there are LFS's that rent a diatom filter? I have a HOT magnum for these occacions...


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

Ok everybody thanks for all the advice! I haven't done anything yet, I was hoping it would just go away--Oh well. 
I guess I am going to tear the whole thing down tomarrow and start over. I live out in the boonies here and the only local lfs didn't even know what flourite was! 
How do I stick batting in my emporer filter?
Am I going to have this problem everytime I mess with planting or gravel cleaning?


----------



## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

Hi Heather

Batting may only help temporarily, the reason I say this, unfortunatly, you say the flourite has your plants covered in red dust, once that does "finally" settle, {assuming this is a planted tank with flourite 8) } not if but when you decide to replant this or that, your tank will basically fog each time  

To save yourself alot of grief over a long period of time, and I know its a pain, but you "will" be better off in the long run if you break it all down and start over, rinse it very well, and it will give you many years of peace, as far as your benificial bacteria goes, you really dont have any yet, I would clean the filter too, get all that mud out of the system.

Your topic post leads me to beleive the tank has not been setup long, so you still have your bacteria bloom and algae bloom to go through{unless you have alot of plants to start with}. thats why I would recommend a clean start.  

and it wont really be that bad once you get going on it, in no time you will have it all clean put back together and filling with "clean" water  as wasser suggested, use a plate laying on the flourite as you fill the tank gently, if you do this carefully, the tank will fill with a slight cloud, but will clear within an hour.


Craig


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

Yuck-- I'm planning on tearing down my tank today. Not looking forward to catching fish in the fog. So you mean that even after I do all this work to get rid of the dust cloud, I'm gonna have a bacteria bloom and algea bloom too? I have been reading about all that stuff on this forum. 
I have three other tanks(non-planted), but this one has been the biggest pain of all. Is there anything I can do to prevent any blooms or is that just part of a planted tank?

Heather


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

Ok--took me three hours but I'm done. Looks SO much better. Fishies are acclimating right now. What about all the tiny bubbles in there? I hear somewhere that those are nitrogen bubbles and that they stick to the fish and can hurt them. This true? If so what in the world do I do now????


----------



## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

Isn' that much better?  and 3 hours.. not bad at all.
the bubbles won't hurt your fishies, now you need alot of plants, as many fast growing plants as you can get your hands on to put in the tank till it gets cycled.


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

No, it wasn't that bad. I tried to hurry! Boy is there lots o' water to clean up though!
I have 18 different fast growing plants in there. Think that's enough?
I also had some Cycle so I added that too.


----------



## fishman250 (Feb 2, 2003)

You know all you people talk about bracking down the whole tank, y don't you just do a 50% water change and make sure you suck all the water out by digging into the gravel and sucking out the dust, I have pure laterite and every time I do anything in my tank I get a cloud of dust , it goes away in time and it dosen't harm anything 

just my 02 cents.


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

Well you may be right there, but I did break down the tank and it looks a lot better. I haven't had any problems since. I guess whatever works for ya.


----------



## jason60640 (Feb 23, 2004)

I can empathize with this guy who doesn't want a coudy tank, but there's got to be a better solution than breaking down a tank. There are folks out there who use pure laterite, sterilized potting soil, and other fine substrates. When I rinsed my flourite, I tried keeping as much as the fine sediment while getting rid of the fine dust. It is this fine sediment that will probably really benefit the plants in the end.

The cloudiness is aesthetically hard to take, but I would approach a similar situation with lots of water changes--not breaking down a system. There are other problems your tank might go through--snails, algae blooms, etc. If you break down your tank each time something happens, you will never have a biologically sound tank. It's not a betta bowl that you can just rinse whenever it gets cloudy.

That being said, I suggest investing in a better filter than the Emperor and not getting so upset each time your tank clouds up because of planting. This "silt" created by residual dust and fine particles is beneficial to the plants.

-Jason


----------



## hchance (Feb 11, 2004)

Jason--
I know breaking down the tank is a drastic move. I know I hated every minute. But the only reason I went that route was because I had my tank going only for a week, so I doubt there was much of a bioload yet. My tank was soooo cloudy, that you couldn't see anything in there, and every plant was covered in red dust. I would've had to remove them and clean them anyway.
My emperor filter was not even touching the cloud. It was terrible. I ended up replacing it with a Filstar and it does well. 
I have recently added a bag of eco-complete to the top layer of flourite to keep the dust down. But I will tell ya that after this experience if I ever set up another tank I won't use flourite. Too messy. 
But that's my opinion. I have just learned the hard (and expensive) way. 
I'm glad that I found this forum because I have learned so much !
Thanks!


----------

