Planting with flourite substrate

[stoneydee]

I set up a 10 gallon planted tank last night, using flourite as my base substrate. Because of what I had read about flourite clouding the water, I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed - then cut my fingernails and rinsed some more. (Briefly tried the pantihose rinsing trick, but had to cut the pantihose up to get all the flourite out, so I returned to the trusty substrate rinsing bucket again - how many buckets do you all have for different tasks?)

I put about 2" of flourite down, followed by 3/4" to 1.5" (deeper at the back) of small black gravel (this tank will house neon tetras and zebra danios), and added water to about 2" from the top of the tank, usingmy handy dandy python, so as not stir things up. Hey, not much clouding at all - the gravel-on-top-of-flourite thing must really work. Added my plants and a piece of driftwood I had boiled the fool out of - it had been soaking in clear water. Really cool look. Hooked up all the electricals and went to bed.

Got up this morning to weak tea. I know that particuarly tetras like black water, so they won't care. But when will the fishkeeper get to see all the way to the back of the tank?

 

[Madame_X]

A little carbon in the filter will get rid of the tannins, which are leeching from your driftwood. Depending on how long you soaked the driftwood, this will slow down after a few weeks.

 

[stoneydee]

Boiled it over the course of about 24 hours, soaked it in room temp water till the soaking water was clear for two changes. So you think it's the driftwood and not the flourite?

 

[tkos]

Heck my water still comes out a little yellow even though my driftwood has been in there for 7 months or more now. Of course you can't see the difference in the tank and I don't run carbon. Helps the plants grow well though.

 

[Plant_Nut]

My water turned for a little while after new Fluorite. With normal filtration it eventually cleared up. PLANT GREEN AND PROSPER !!!!!

 

[madasafish]

Happy Holidays!

Yeah, I think it's the driftwood, too.

BUT , is this weak tea with milk/cream or not If it looks like just plain old Lipton, then it's the driftwood. If it looks more like Lipton with half and half (cloudy), that's the fluorite.

I've had the same experience as tkos. My driftwood is 6 months old and still colors the water (now almost imperceptibly when in the tank). When I have to bring a fish back to the store for one reason or other, though, I fill a bag up with the tank water and get quite a surprise. Out of the tank the water still really looks like tea! Taking the fish back to the store is always a rather embarrasing operation, then, since they (must) think I'm keeping my fish in very dirty water!

BTW, I'm guessing you got plain old Fluorite. Am I right? It's not *nearly* as bad as Fluorite Red!!! I have both, and Fluorite Red was 20 X harder to rinse out and clouded up my 10G for 2 weeks.

HTH!

 

[madasafish]

Happy Holidays!

Yeah, I think it's the driftwood, too.

BUT , is this weak tea with milk/cream or not If it looks like just plain old Lipton, then it's the driftwood. If it looks more like Lipton with half and half (cloudy), that's the fluorite.

I've had the same experience as tkos. My driftwood is 6 months old and still colors the water (now almost imperceptibly when in the tank). When I have to bring a fish back to the store for one reason or other, though, I fill a bag up with the tank water and get quite a surprise. Out of the tank the water still really looks like tea! Taking the fish back to the store is always a rather embarrasing operation, then, since they (must) think I'm keeping my fish in very dirty water!

BTW, I'm guessing you got plain old Fluorite. Am I right? It's not *nearly* as bad as Fluorite Red!!! I have both, and Fluorite Red was 20 X harder to rinse out and clouded up my 10G for 2 weeks.

HTH!

 

[stoneydee]

I hadn't thought of it that way, but it is cloudy weak tea. I threw the bag away, but the flourite has a lot of red in it, I was thinking as I was rinsing it that it must be almost 100% clay. Looks like I'll be into squinting at the tank for a while.

 

[madasafish]

Both "Fluorite" and "Fluorite red" have a lot of red color to them. In fact, they're almost indistinguishable. I imagine the red is just super-infused with (oxidizing)iron...

Hopefully it'll clear up soon. Sounds like it is the substrate. Don't be afraid to do frequent (daily or bidaily) water changes to get rid of some of the cloudiness if you're cycling the tank already. If you don't have fish in there yet, or are not cycling the tank, just change the water as often as you can, and make sure you stir up the substrate a little before each change.