One thing that would be very helpful is to show what each variation looks like in a tank. The regular flourite is much redder than you think, the dark has an almost purple tinge to it.
Seachem Flourite Black Clay Gravel is the only substrate I'll ever use. The trick to making it dust free is to pour it into a 5 gallon bucket then rinse, dump and repeat until the water is clear. Then put cardboard out on a hot, sunny day, spread the gravel across it and let it dry and bake in the sun all day. It's never failed me and my water stays clear and bright when first added to the tank.
Since u have a positive review I'll ask you if you don't mind Do you have plants in your aquarium with this substrate and if so was it enough for the plants or did you have to add fertilizers/tabs?
Flourite is great, its like a hybrid between sand and gravel. The grains are very flat and fine, which really helps to prevent food and other waste from getting trapped between grains.
You can avoid cloudy water (and even having to rinse at all) by spreading the Flourite out in the sun and letting it dry *completely*. I'm talking BONE DRY. You should probably sift/turn it to make sure that there's absolutely NO moisture remaining. Then put it into your tank and add water very gently. It's recommended to lay a dish on top of the gravel and pour the water onto it. It has worked for me every time I've set up a planted tank. At worst, you get a slight initial haze in the water column, but no worse than if you were to use epoxy-coated gravel. Caveat: this has been MY experience. YMMV.
You had me at that groaner of joke ❣ A better way to teach people about this type of gravel is just use the proper wording... 'CERAMIC'. All ceramics are calcined or baked. This type of gravel, oil absorb, sports field surfaces, and certain Kitty Litters are baked at different temperatures, but all are baked. To take your idea of a nutrient sponge, i take my dry ceramic gravel and pre-soak it in water with 3 to 5 times the dosage of aquarium plant fertilizers for the bottom half of the substrate layer. It gives your aquarium a jump start and my plants love it !
Does this stuff float like jbl manado or does it actually stay where you put it? I've had jbl manado in a previous set up and it floated everytime a Cory and ramirezi touched it, also didn't hold the plants down
Put my brand new filters in and this stuff clogged them up so fast, you can’t even see past a half inch into the tank. I’ll see how it looks after 24 hours but I’m not optimistic also bummer that it trashed my new filters.
the color is a bit more than color. the red, which you don't show, contains a lot of iron, which is why it is red color. iron is the nutrient plants want. so do the dark colors hve as much iron? inquiring minds want to know.
