Having Problems With Soilmaster

[junco]

I seem to have made the mistake of rinsing my Soilmaster Select (charcoal color) before using it. I've gone through multiple, complete water changes now and I'm still not satisfied. The dust settles if I leave the filter off over night, and I can then vaccum the settled dust and do a water change. If I fill the tank up slowly the water is clear... but as soon as I distrub the substrate even a little, the water quickly becomes opaque. How am I supposed to deal with that when I'll be needing to plant things and move things around in the beginning?

ARGH!!! If I take everything out, start from scratch, and use the other half of the Soilmaster bag that I haven't rinsed yet... will I have better luck or will it be just the same?

 

[dasmall1]

I actually have a bag of soilmaster select (charcoal color) sitting right outside my door ready to be set up. If you were a couple weeks later I would have been able to help you. Sorry

 

[TammyLiz]

I have a planted tank with about 3 inches of charcoal soilmaster select, set up for about six months now. I did rinse it, and rinse and rinse and rinse. I don't know how much you rinsed yours but there was eventually a point where the dust became a little less thick, and thats when I added it to the tank. It was cloudy at first but clear the next day, and I never did turn off the filter and I didn't have the problem of the cloudiness coming back. Messing around in it does kick up dust but its not so much as to affect the look of the tank much at all, and only veeery temporarily. What I struggled with most was that it is so light, no weight to it at all, and I had trouble keeping my stem plants down in it long enough to root. No more problems with that unless I need to replant, and since my tank is low light that doesn't happen very much. My guess is that either you didn't rinse enough, or that you're pickier than I am (a little dust never hurt anything, but I'm not sure how much you're getting), or that in time once it becomes more waterlogged it'll settle down a bit. Also, my tank is 55 gallons. Maybe in a smaller tank the dust would be more of a problem? Just speculation.

HTH.

Tammy

 

[dasmall1]

What method did you use to rinse it?