Flourite, 7 kg / 15.4 lbs

...if you rinse well it's not as bad as some of the reviews.I'm very happy with this type of substrate. I had gravel in my 3 tanks before I discovered this stuff, and the gravel was so dirty and my plants weren't thriving. I bought flourite black and was afraid even after rinsing many several times in a half hour that it would murk up my tanks. I put all my fish and plants in a giant plastic tote with their filter/heater/decor for a couple weeks while changing substrates and cycling again. The murk went away pretty quick, I had clear water within an hour.The way I rinsed:Dumped 1/2 bag of flourite in a large bucket. Rinsed by filling bucket with water over substrate and BLASTED IT with the hose until I filled the bucket with water. Let substrate settle to bottom (some flourite may blast out but it's an insignificant amount, in my opinion) then let water drain almost completely.... Then repeat this about 10-15 times or until it's only slightly murky. Dump in aquarium and fill with water as usual and set up as usual.After planting live plants and blulbs of water lily & water onion, and another type of seed in this substrate, I'm convinced this is the best substrate for my tanks. The bulbs I planted in this substrate that would not grow in the gravel are thriving in the flourite, they look beautiful. It has not clouded up anything and it looks more natural in the tanks. You can also see the fish scale color is much brighter against the natural and dark substrate.I bought this clay colored kind for my red claw crab/guppy tank. I haven't planted this one yet but I will update with pictures in a month or so. The pictures posted right now are with flourite black. Another thing about this stuff is: there are larger pieces and smaller pieces. I thought it would be more sandlike but I actually like it better than some other actual sand substrate. Just thought this might be nice to know in case other buyers expected it to be more like sand. It's actually small clay pieces.Your aquatic plants will love it!**update**2 days later:So I wrote a review a little early for this flourite... Yesterday I almost came back to leave a 1 Star review... But I'm going to leave it at 5 because even though the dust was BAD with this red clay substrate compared to the black clay... It took 15 rinses with a hose outside and then I added it to my tank and filled with water... It was fully murky for 24 hrs. I put my decor and plants the filter in to help and ended up taking everything out after the 24 hours and rinsing everything off (it was covered in red dust/sludge).. Draining all of the water again and then refilling with water. Be sure to put a bowl with tall sides in to pour the water directly into the bowl so you don't disturb the substrate as much as possible. Let the water sit with NO filter going for a few hours and then let it run overnight with the bowl under the water flow if you have a filter that drops water). Then do not to disturb the substrate again when placing your decor... I placed a large abalone shell under my filter to keep the substrate from getting pushed around. (I know... Pain in the A but... Look how natural and beautiful my tank is!!)...Anyway, if you don't mind a little work for an amazing substrate with great results of you keep a planted tank... This stuff is really worth it. I probably personally will never buy this red stuff again but the black stuff is great... Low dust and the plants grow like wild in there!My crab seems to like it as well!My first two pictures are with the black flourite and the second two are with the red, as you can plainly see.

This substrate has a clean, nice natural look. The material is chunks of clay and minerals. Supports a great biofilter and seems to be just right to buffer the pH and maintain mineral hardness (GH and KH). Never vacuum it and instead to large RO water changes each week.If you are adding this to an existing tank or there is livestock in the tank, you should wash it first. Rinse it and agitate it until the runoff is clear, then mix it around and rinse some more. Use a strainer with small holes. This substrate gets very dusty during shipping and if it is not washed your water will turn red and the TDS will skyrocket and may injure any livestock. That said, if you don't have livestock there is no need to wash the substrate and it's probably better not to, because it is good to have a diverse mix of particle sizes and washing the substrate removes all or most of the smaller sand like pieces. The finest particles will settle to the bottom of the substrate and add surface area to the biofilter, which will filter the finest pieces of detritus (fish and plant waste) as it settles downward. The beneficial microbes turn the detritus into dissolved nitrates which you remove by doing large water changes and having plants that consume it. Again, this is without ever vacuuming the gravel. Water testing for ammonia, nitrate, nitrate, GH and KH, is of course recommended.

The media could not be loaded. I purchased 5 15.4 bags of flourite to put in my 75 gallon turtle tank so I can put some aquatic plants in there soon. I undertook this a few days before Christmas, and I'm still recovering from the ordeal. While I do think the product works well for planted tanks, I think there should be incredibly good instructions provided. It says you "may" have to rinse it, but no matter how much you rinse, it still releases extremely fine red dust in the water.I did a whole lot of research before deciding on this product, and on how to put it in. I suppose, for a fish tank, just letting the sediment settle at the bottom is ok. I have turtles, and they disturb the substrate (even under river rocks) so I didn't want a red cloud every time they played and explored. I read tons of blogposts and watched tons of videos on methods for putting flourite substrate in and decided to trust someone that recommended to let my canister filter take care of it with filter floss. BIG MISTAKE - DO NOT EVER DO THIS. Immediately the tank was like thin red paint. I was worried, but had faith the canister filter full of filter floss would handle it. I let it run until the water was clearing up, took the filter outside, rinsed everything well, set it to run again and disturbed the substrate to get all the sediment back up. I repeated this for several days to no avail. There was just to much (extremely fine) sediment.I finally found a video on a method where you fill a 2-liter soda bottle with dry (or rinsed substrate) then place the bottle in the aquarium until it is submerged and filling with water. As soon as it's about to be full of water (or all the air nearly all bubbles out), turn it over (upside down) and let the substrate fall out. The remaining air will cause the sediment to bubble up while the rocks trickle out, sort of cleaning them off of the dust one them, and 99% of the sediment stays in the bottle. I did this after completely draining my tank, taking all the substrate out, taking the tank outside and cleaning it so I can set it up again. The sediment is like powered paint and once it's wet it's a HUGE MESS. This coke bottle method is BY FAR THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH FLOURITE. I just added a bottle every time the water cleared up and disturbed the substrate until there was no more cloudiness.It's been a couple of weeks and dealing with this has exhausted me to to the point where I don't want to act on my inspiration for aquascaping and adding more life (plants, fish and crayfish) to my tank. Doing it the wrong way really messed me up, but the instructional "may need rinsing" is totally misleading.I will take only 1 star off because my trouble was primarily my own fault (though there's no help from Seachem so it's practically unavoidable) and the small plant I put in seemed to take well. After I plant my tank I will post pictures, in addition to those I post now of putting it in, etc.