Fluorite Nightmare

[jason8612]

Hello,
Its a long post.

I got a 150gal tank and I was kinda rushing...
Now my tank looks like the Colorado river.

I added fluorite and rinsed it off, but the water even after a day and a half is still real cloudy. Is there anything I can do to get rid of the cloudiness?

Its a new setup.
It used to be my 150gal reef tank, but since I wont be able to take watch 24/7, my brother now will, and we decided to change it to a freshwater planted tank.
I got 3 different filters that will be running, the sump with the bio balls and UV light, the Magnum 350 canister with carbon and the H.O.T 250 with the micron cart. for a sparkle look. This way, water changes wont have to be a whole days job, but a partial weekly would still be good. Water of course is filtered (RO). Our tap has Radium, so I dont even drink it.

But right now I got just the magnum 350 running with the carbon. Im afraid to run the sump, since I dont want to get a buildup of that clay crap all inside that pump.

My final goal is to get a Amazon look with driftwood and a bunch of live plants, add a 1/2 dozen Discus and a stingray. Water should be beyond clean, with the best RO water that I could buy. Gravel is .5MM which i will cover the flourite once it settles and vacumn it. That way, hopefully with the tnk stocked, like i mentioned earlier, once a week water changes should be fine (15%) and carbon changes once a month or sooner should be OK. Im not 100% sure qabout a CO2 reactor. I dont want the plants to grow like weeds, ill buy fully grown plants at the pet store and with that fluorite base and adding the plant food and with my VHO PC lights which i believe are over 400watts, havent checked in a long time, but were fine for growing coral at the top part of the tank, hopefully there will be no need for a co2 reactor.

Anything else I should watch out for? The tank will house 1 ray and the discus and some larger snails, like apple snails. I need this tank set up in a week and a 1/2 (yes I know the cycle is longer and rushing is bad) but I cant have a bare Red tank for a party. I already added NitroMax and another type of Bacteria.

Below is a pic of the current color of the tank (after 1 day of cycling)

The only thing I can see really is taking out all the florite, washing it, and getting all new water (150gal).

Please help!

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[krap101]

i dont think your suppose to wash flourite... but i think you should put the gravel on top of the flourite and like take all the water out? is there any fish in there right now?

 

[Guest]

I am having the exact same problems with my tank, I don't know what to do.

 

[jason8612]

no fish yet

 

[Guest]

I do, thats the sad part. I can't imagine them making it through this mud ball. I wish I had no fish, I would turn the filter off so it would settle faster. Instead I have to run the filter and I bet it gets all clogged up. This stuff really sucks, there should be a warning on the package.

 

[wabyrd]

WAIT. It will clear up, but it does take time. Be patient. Keeping fish is all about patience. If you don't have it, you're in the wrong hobby. It's taken me about 4 years to get my tanks the way they need to be and they still aren't really perfect yet. A lot of the suspended particles will eventually settle. You want that to happen as your plants will use that material as well. Why spend the money on a good substrate if you're just going to suck part of it out with rapid water changes.

On a final note, you can have a empty red tank for a party. If you rush the setup, you might just end up with an EMPTY tank shortly after the party.

WB

 

[Steve Hampton]

Buy a Micron Cartridge for the Magnum 350 and run that alone. For a detailed explanation of how to prepare Flourite BEFORE putting it into your tank, see the late Vicki Costley's webpage. I have followed her advice repeatedly without any cloudly water using Flourite as a substrate in my planted tanks.

http://www.vickisaquaticplace.com/fluorite.html

 

[Guest]

On a final note, you can have a empty red tank for a party. If you rush the setup, you might just end up with an EMPTY tank shortly after the party.

WB

Huh, I have no idea what you are talking about

 

[krap101]

its some sort of metaphor. if i get it correctly if you rush into fish keeping your fish might die and you'll get depressed and you'll just give up... thats what i got from it

 

[Guest]

Buy a Micron Cartridge for the Magnum 350 and run that alone. For a detailed explanation of how to prepare Flourite BEFORE putting it into your tank, see the late Vicki Costley's webpage. I have followed her advice repeatedly without any cloudly water using Flourite as a substrate in my planted tanks.

http://www.vickisaquaticplace.com/fluorite.html

Wow - great article. Just a few days too late. :? Personally, I don't mind waiting for the florite to settle though, I just don't want the two fish I have in there to die and/or my filter to become hopelessly clogged with mud. As long as either of these don't happen, I'll happily wait as long as it takes for the stuff to settle.

Have any of you had experience either way with Florite either clooging up your filter parts or not?

 

[jason8612]

Im patient, but still if the bag said 2-12hrs to settle, I expect 2-12hrs not 3+days. I could of set up the inside tank by that time and get the sump pumping and everything.

I had a reef setup and a few freshwater setups and I know what patient is, including waiting a 3month cycle, but still, I could of saved a lot of time if they would of printed directions on the bag instead of "Just rinse and place in water. Cloudiness will occur but will clean up in 2-12hrs"

 

[Guest]

Im patient, but still if the bag said 2-12hrs to settle, I expect 2-12hrs not 3+days. I could of set up the inside tank by that time and get the sump pumping and everything.

I had a reef setup and a few freshwater setups and I know what patient is, including waiting a 3month cycle, but still, I could of saved a lot of time if they would of printed directions on the bag instead of "Just rinse and place in water. Cloudiness will occur but will clean up in 2-12hrs"

Thats a good point too. Its only been 6 hours for me, I'm hoping mine will be settled when I get home from work tomorrow at least (24 hours total).

 

[jason8612]

Another thing I read,
What about if I get a Vortex Diatom filter?
Thats supposed to clean up any sediment floating in the water.
It would be a lot cheaper to get this than to even think about replacing the water, let alone im sure I can borrow one from a friend or my LFS since im good buds with him and he has a huge 200gal show-tank in the enterance.

 

[sonoma2nv]

Mine did the same thing.Ill tell you how i got the cloudieness to go away.I drained the whole tank of water.put a bowl in the middle and filled it letting the water hit the bowl.I used a hose to fill.when i was done you saw a small hint of a white cloud.2 hours later clear.But i have a 29gal with a xp3 on it to.

 

[greenmaji]

A DE filter should help alot.. Its a good investment for such emergencys.. If you have a magnum 350 with micron cartridge laying around you can convert it pretty easy..

 

[jason8612]

Im just going to drain it and rinse the flurorite again.
Another day of work

 

[malkore]

Use your gravel vac to suck the excess dirt off the flourite. that'll be about as effective as pulling it and rinsing it, and less effort.

diatom will work, but get it rinsed off again somehow before running it.

 

[ddsmd]

I had a similar problem, though not as muddy.

Fill your filter with filter floss and get some CLARITY. Follow the directions for a quick clearing of the water, ( I think it is double the regular amount but it is listed on the bottle) and let it do its work. After the water has cleared, remove the floss from your filter and place whatever filter media you desire in the filter.

 

[krap101]

can someone get me a pic of washed fluorite? because the kind they have at the lfs (bags) is like lil chunks of mud

 

[jason8612]

I tried Clarity and it did nothing at all. I tried vacumning it up earlier, but its didnt do anything.
I emptied out the tank, and took out the fluorite and washed it out like people mentioned earlier outside at 10pm and dried it on towels. Threw it in the tank and filled it up again at 2am today and just finished filling it and getting the wiring hooked up again and cleaning up after my mess and everything (its 6am and I started at 6pmish) Well the water is a tad cloudy, but nowhere near what I had before. Its more of a whitish cloud, but I know it will settle soon. When I hit the fluorite, I think it would be impossible to do anything vacumning it up. there was a think clay layer of mud and the walls were covered in that red clay stuff. Vacumning would of taken weeks.
Luckly the manager who worked at the Local Food store has fish and basically let me fill up my 5gal jugs for 50% off (thats 25cents/gal for RO water thats been double carbon filtered) so refilling the whole tank for about $40 didnt do any harm.

all I can say is thanks for all your advice, but at the end, it was just back-breaking labor that got that tank clean