Alternative way of washing Seachem Flourite

[uklau]

I'm sure everyone using Flourite had hard time washing it before puttting it to use. I almost gave up when washing the 1st packet. So, I come out with the following method to wash the rest.

1) Rinse the Flourite for about 6-7 times to clear all the muddy water (the usual way washing it before using it).
2) Fill the pail containing Flourite with water.
3) Put the hang on top filter on top & the pump in the water. Slope the Flourite in such a way that the pump inlet is at the lowest point. Fill the filter with layers of white sponge (mechanical filter).
4) Start the filter & let the cloudy water (containing flourite dust) go through the filter. The water should clear off after about 30-40 mins.
5) Stir the Flourite to make the water cloudy again & repeat step 4 & 5 a few times until the duration between cloudy water turns clear becomes shorter.
6) Slowly scoop the Flourite from the pail. When the water turns cloudy again, turn on the filter & wait until the water is cleared before the next scooping.
7) At the end, you'll have all the Flourite dust sink at the bottom of the pail.

Advantages
1) Minimized the wastage of water.
2) Avoid the dust to settle in the tank, canister filter & also the tubing.

Disadvantages
1) Takes longer to wash Flourite
2) Stirring of Florite might breaks it into smaller size & increase the dust.

Feel free to comment. I hope we can improve this until it is beneficial to everyone using Flourite as substrate.

[Quixotic]

Interesting that you even bothered to wash it like that. Seachem actually recommended a rinse only.

I gave up on washing and only rinsed them. Learnt to live with the dusty small particles or layer the top with Lapis sand.

How long did you take in total for the washing?

BTW, wouldn't a sieve able to do the job as well? I haven't tried that though.

[Shadow]

You have interesting way of cleaning. Should work with other substrate and gravel as well. Will try next time

[aquarius]

For me i pour the flourite over a small green netting than run it over tap water with the pail below so that all the very fine flourite particles will be in the pail. I did this until it's clean or not much dust.

I find this method very tedious, so i later pour the flourite which is properly spread out over the netting which i lay on the bath room floor than use the shower spray and spray over the flourite until it is clean. Once clean, i just pick up the netting with the flourite on it and tranfer it to the tank. This method is very much faster.

[bleez]

I didn't use such a method for rinsing flourite. Did it the hard way with several rinses. Few months back, I did come across someone in www.plantedtank.net mentioning one or two rinses with flourite and sunning after that. Add it into your tank and there should be no dust particles kicked up. I haven't tried yet but wouldn't mind giving it a go if I need to add more flourite.

[uklau]

How long did you take in total for the washing?

Very much depends on the Flourite (some are more dustythan the other) & also how often you stir it. I left it for a week, running the filter only when I reached home from work & switch it off before I went to sleep. Still haven't got time to finalize my new tank & cabinet design.

[uklau]

For me i pour the flourite over a small green netting than run it over tap water with the pail below so that all the very fine flourite particles will be in the pail. I did this until it's clean or not much dust.

I find this method very tedious, so i later pour the flourite which is properly spread out over the netting which i lay on the bath room floor than use the shower spray and spray over the flourite until it is clean. Once clean, i just pick up the netting with the flourite on it and tranfer it to the tank. This method is very much faster.

Very good approach, which I would like to combine it with my method to reduce the usage of water . Thanks, Aquarius

[uklau]

I didn't use such a method for rinsing flourite. Did it the hard way with several rinses. Few months back, I did come across someone in www.plantedtank.net mentioning one or two rinses with flourite and sunning after that. Add it into your tank and there should be no dust particles kicked up. I haven't tried yet but wouldn't mind giving it a go if I need to add more flourite.

I still don't believe that several rinses will clear off the dust, unless the Flourite I purchase contains the most dust of all. Although I don't think that sunning the Flourite would reduce the dust, I'll visit the URL some day & try it out. Thanks for sharing, Bleez.

[bleez]

uklau,

You are right that several rinses will not be able to clear off the dusts. Considering the amount of water, energy and time used, I decided that there should be a limit to the consumption of resources. So I transferred it to the tank after several rinses. Needed ~2 days to completely clear with filter running. Never had any major dust problems after that. The rinsing part is really personal preference cos the dust will settle and diminish the longer flourite is in the tank....

[Quixotic]

The dusty particles will be a problem if you rescape your tank quite often. The digging and planting will stir up some dusts particles for sure.

I am not sure if the amount of dust is propotional to how old the stock is. I think it is possible that the older the pack of Flourite is, the more dust it contains. I still have some leftover and noticed that there were visibly more dusts particles than when I first got it since a year ago.