# Tips on cleaning Fluorite?



## nickcamp12345

I'm going to most likely get my mom to buy me some Fluorite for my tank and I know it's notorious for clouding all the water. I have a spare tank to temporarily hold my fish in so I should be good for at most a day. What do you guys do to clean the fluorite and reduce the clouding drastically?


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## jrafael

nickcamp12345 said:


> I'm going to most likely get my mom to buy me some Fluorite for my tank and I know it's notorious for clouding all the water. I have a spare tank to temporarily hold my fish in so I should be good for at most a day. What do you guys do to clean the fluorite and reduce the clouding drastically?


 
http://www.rexgrigg.com/substrate.htm

"Ok, here is the way I wash substrates that need to be washed. Go to the local home improvement store and get a paint strainer that fits over a 5 gallon bucket, if you don't have a 5 gallon bucket get one of those also. Take the strainer and place it over the bucket. Pour about 5 lbs of the substrate in question into the strainer. Use the hose to wash the substrate. Don't use a high pressure sprayer. You don't want or need to break it up just get it clean. Now pull the strainer off the bucket, dump the water and repeat till the water is fairly clear. Using this method will save the “fines” but get rid of the dust. Substrates that benefit from this method are Flourite, Onyx, and plain old sand or gravel."


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## jrafael

mamun said:


> Care & _Cleaning_: _Fluorite_ is quite fragile and must be handled with care. To clean, rub lightly with a soft polishing cloth or use a plain water rinse.


I dont think we are talking about the same flourite, seachem fluorite it's is a specially fracted, stable porous clay, and isn't quite fragile.


http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Flourite.html

"Although pre-washed, it may be rinsed before use to remove residual dust. Dust can also be minimized by filling aquarium slowly and dispersing water so that the Flourite™ bed is not disturbed. Slight initial cloudiness is normal and will clear rapidly (2–12 hours). To shorten the cloudiness period use Clarity™ in conjuction with mechanical filtration (such as filter floss)."


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## Spachi

i'm still a noob, but theres one thing i learned about PT. wash and DRY the flourite!! spread it out in the sun. for some reason that eliminates the dust. even when the bed is disturbed months later.


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## nickcamp12345

thanks guys. the article was good and having it dry out is a great idea.


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## kid creole

Fish come from real water, with dirt mixed in. A little flourite dust won't hurt them. I've heard of lots people who are unhappy with cloudiness from flourite (not me), but I've yet to hear about someone who lost a fish due to the suspended clay.


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## nickcamp12345

kid creole said:


> Fish come from real water, with dirt mixed in. A little flourite dust won't hurt them. I've heard of lots people who are unhappy with cloudiness from flourite (not me), but I've yet to hear about someone who lost a fish due to the suspended clay.


I'm not worried about losing the fish because of the dust. It's just the fact that when I put the substrate in, I want to see what's actually inside it. I've seen lots of pictures of peoples tanks that used fluorite as a substrate and even after rinsing it a couple times prior, it was still a mess.


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## bluecheese

The flourite dust will settle. But when ever I do a new planting, or really in into the substrate to clean, it gets dusty as hell. If you have a good filter, it'll be gone in less than a day. My fluval 205 usually cleans it out in a couple of hours.


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## kid creole

nickcamp12345 said:


> I'm not worried about losing the fish because of the dust. It's just the fact that when I put the substrate in, I want to see what's actually inside it. I've seen lots of pictures of peoples tanks that used fluorite as a substrate and even after rinsing it a couple times prior, it was still a mess.


Patience, young jedi. 

Dust there will be. Go away it will.


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## Hoppy

You can avoid most of the dust if you rinse just the top half inch or so of the Flourite. Then add water so it flows onto a plate of some kind and not directly onto the substrate. I have done that twice and neither time had any more than a very slight haze in the water, which cleared up overnight.


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## nickcamp12345

alright i FINALLY got fluorite and i saw the bag and was like omg yes its brown and not red. i go to rinse it and of course it was red, just very dusty lolll. i actually like the look of it and i rinsed it for a good hour and dust was still coming out so i decided to just throw it in the tank. so i need some tips on keeping the water as clear as possible because my tank is pretty gross. i have the fish in another 10 gallon tank with a heater. I don't know if i should put them in the tank because you can barely see in there and i don't want them to be stressed or something. just let me know what you did when you added fluorite. 

thanks in advance,
nick


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## sewingalot

In one of my tanks, I did 50% water changes and slowly filled the tank back up over a tupperware lid 3 days in a row. I added the fish back the same day, but it is really up to you. If they are good in the 10 gallon, it might be a good idea to wait until you have it planted at least.


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## nickcamp12345

sewingalot said:


> In one of my tanks, I did 50% water changes and slowly filled the tank back up over a tupperware lid 3 days in a row. I added the fish back the same day, but it is really up to you. If they are good in the 10 gallon, it might be a good idea to wait until you have it planted at least.


Thanks. I added them back this morning and suprisingly it's not as cloudy. I never expected this stuff to be so cloudy. I always thought people were just over exaggurating. Obviously I was wrong. lol


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## sewingalot

I think you can also over rinse the stuff. I have found that to be my problem more often than not. Last time I just dumped it in and did the water changes. How are the fish?


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## nickcamp12345

sewingalot said:


> I think you can also over rinse the stuff. I have found that to be my problem more often than not. Last time I just dumped it in and did the water changes. How are the fish?


I think they like the change. At first the tetras were shoaling really tightly together along with the barbs. The cories acted the same way and now the water is pretty much clear. Everything is back in order and once i get more plants next weekend, I think they'll really enjoy it.


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## blackandyellow

I wish I had read this thread before. I filled the tank on saturday. I have the regular fluorite. The tank is still quite cloudy even though the filter has helped.

I rinsed the fluorite several times but not to the point of having crystal water, thinking that "dust" would help the plants. Still the cloudiness is amazing.

What´s worrying me is that the dust is now covering the plant leaves and I don´t know if that´s going to damage them, since they cant probably absorb as much light.

You think I need to clean the plants? 

I´m going to change 50% of the water and hope it will clear out...


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## lauraleellbp

+1 on rinse it thoroughly (till the water running off comes clear even after stirring it up) and then let it DRY.

I've had Flourite dust kill tons of plants... even 4 years down the road in a 10gal tank I had to be super careful not to disturb it.

I haven't had any clouding issues at all in my 90gal, however, where I both rinsed and dried it before use. Even after a major rescape.


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## DaveS

That's strange to hear of the dust killing plants. I use Fluorite in almost all of my tanks, never worried about rinsing it well and I have never lost a plant or fish to the dust. It must depend on what type of plant it is. My last couple of tanks I didn't rinse it at all (who has that kind of time?).

-Dave


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## Gold Finger

*My first T.P.T. post*

Am currently filling my first ever fertile substrate tank. Its MTS (dirt) capped with Flourite black sand. Its about 1/3 full and so far the water is _almost_ crystal clear. I didn't rinse the Fluorite at all. First I rolled over the surface with a heavy roll of waxed paper to pack and smooth it, which may or may not be a factor in controlling dust clouding, but seemed sensible to me. Second, and I really think this is the trick, I am filling the tank (a 70G) by siphon *through an air line tube* (which is resting on a (now floating) zip lock sandwich bag). The water is entering with so little turbulence it can't kick up any dust. The dust won't float up by its self. There's a protein like oily film on the surface and a few small white clouds of some unknown substance sitting like fog in the slight valleys of the FBS, but otherwise the water is clear. Tip to you.:wink:


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## audioaficionado

Is this a new formula with less dust? I was thinking of getting a bag of the black for my 20L and setting it up.


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## mach_six

best to rinse it in small batches rather on dumping the entire contents into a bucket.


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## mr2

eco complete ftw no dust no fuss


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## Gold Finger

audioaficionado said:


> Is this a new formula with less dust? I was thinking of getting a bag of the black for my 20L and setting it up.


It's the sand version. Smaller particles. I assume its the same stuff ground up. They don't claim it's low dust.

Seriously. Don't waste your time rinsing it. Just don't disturb it when you add the water.

I was worried so I scanned for advice before I filled my tank. I found a few people who said not to rinse it so I figured "what the heck" why not try it. It worked perfectly. Almost perfectly clear water.

Put it in the tank dry then fill the first third of your tank through an air hose sized siphon tube. After that you can switch to a regular sized tube as long as you keep it away from the bottom.

I understand why people won't want to try this, but for those of you who do please post your results here. If a few people post their belief in the method others will give it a try.

Sand you rinse clean. flourite never rinses clean, and like it says on the bag you don't have to.


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## audioaficionado

How good is it for holding down rootless stems that you poke in after a trim?


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## mr2

Gold Finger said:


> It's the sand version. Smaller particles. I assume its the same stuff ground up. They don't claim it's low dust.
> 
> Seriously. Don't waste your time rinsing it. Just don't disturb it when you add the water.
> 
> I was worried so I scanned for advice before I filled my tank. I found a few people who said not to rinse it so I figured "what the heck" why not try it. It worked perfectly. Almost perfectly clear water.
> 
> Put it in the tank dry then fill the first third of your tank through an air hose sized siphon tube. After that you can switch to a regular sized tube as long as you keep it away from the bottom.
> 
> I understand why people won't want to try this, but for those of you who do please post your results here. If a few people post their belief in the method others will give it a try.
> 
> 
> Sand you rinse clean. flourite never rinses clean, and like it says on the bag you don't have to.


I did something like this with flourite black sand, it was a lot better than when I just poured the water in and I thought I was home free... but then when I went to put the plants in it got super cloudy again anyway. Now I just add water slowly, pouring onto a plate, doing my best not to disturb it, but I dont stress if it gets cloudy. I really think cloudy set up is just a given with any flourite product, rinsed or unrinsed. If it bothers you use eco complete.


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## mr2

audioaficionado said:


> How good is it for holding down rootless stems that you poke in after a trim?


Regular flourite is good at this, the flourite sand is not too good in my experience.


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## Gold Finger

mr2 said:


> I did something like this with flourite black sand, it was a lot better than when I just poured the water in and I thought I was home free... but then when I went to put the plants in it got super cloudy again anyway. Now I just add water slowly, pouring onto a plate, doing my best not to disturb it, but I dont stress if it gets cloudy. I really think cloudy set up is just a given with any flourite product, rinsed or unrinsed. If it bothers you use eco complete.


Yer right Mr. Plants and fish clouded it up a bit. I agree that set up cloudiness is par for the course with fluorite. It doesn't bother me. It's one of those things that aren't perfected overnight.


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