Grind Flourite?

[Daniel Morris]

Its been about a year and a half since i've been out of the hobby and I am pretty excited about getting back into it.

So I'm determined to achieve something I've always wanted - to successfully grow a large glosso foreground cover.

I've tried this in the past for several years, and my results were weak. While I had decent growth and success with most of the other plants, I could not get glosso to take root in my flourite gravel. And I'm not saying its not possible - I'm just saying I think i need to alleviate the hurdle that the larger granule size of Flourite poses to this effort.

To this end I would pose two questions:

1. Has anyone had experience/success producing glosso growth in a dry start approach?

2. I am considering grinding my flourite to get the pebble size smaller so glosso can more easily root in it.

3. I'm also considering mixing it with sand or something else that is very cheap and DIYish, but I want to make sure I'm not making a mistake by not going 100% flourite simply because i have a virtual mountainload of it. What the thinking here?

Many thanks in advance for your interest.

Daniel Morris
(can't wait to get back into the hobby!)

 

[Tom Barr]

Just use Black flourite SAND.
The issue is not the grain size, same for ADA AS, Gloss grows extremely well in both, but if you want to use the sand(I like it aesthetically more), no need to grind it.

They sell it already.
Gloss takes about 2 weeks to get growing well and then takes off like mad.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Daniel Morris]

Hey Tom - great to see your forum is still very active and thanks for the quick reply.

I already have about 12-15 bags worth of regular flourite and was hoping to avoid making any further purchases (if I did though I would definitely go for the Flourite Black sand you mentioned because its more aesthetically pleasing to me). What would your advice be in this case? Mix with regular sand? Grind? and if grind then do you or anyone else have any suggestions as to how would one go about doing that?

I've heard from folks in forums that both approaches work fine, but sand may be a little easier for glosso to root in. That being said I recognize that for many that hasn't been an issue. I've just had such a darn hard time from keeping my glosso from floating up because it doesn't appear to be well rooted. Planting it is such a pain I'm just trying to minimize my frustration in my second attempt.

If grinding it doesn't seem like a feasible option, then perhaps doing a dry start would sidestep some of the issues i've had in the past. Have you had success in growing glosso with a dry start? (I was considering doing dry start to get my java moss, anubias and glosso well rooted and revved up.)

Thanks!
Daniel

 

[ibnozn]

Sifting it worked very well for me. Not for glosso but my HC stayed put. Of course you'll be left with a whole lot of larger grain Flourite which will eventually work it's way to the surface of your substrate if you bury it with finer stuff. I put the larger grain stuff in mesh bags made from wash scrunchy netting to keep it on the bottom layer.

 

[cggorman]

Bubba would smash Flourite with a tamper or sledge...Bubba's rich uncle would spread it on the (concrete) driveway and run over it repeatedly with the steel lawn roller (or even the car)...

 

[Daniel Morris]

Ibnozn -

I'm not sure I understand your idea correctly; perhaps you could advise me if I have this right. The idea would be to sift the flourite so as to separate the large granules from the smaller silt? Once I have them separate, place the larger sized granules at the bottom of the substrate and then top it with the silt? If thats the idea, that certainly seems plausible, but I worry that the silt would over time sink below the larger granules. Maybe I have this wrong though?


Cggorman -

too bad bubba can't drive to my apartment building and do it for me....

Unfortunately cggorman I live in an apartment building in downtown washington DC so using a sledgehammer on a mound of gravel in front of the building or even running over it with a car aren't feasible (although the visual of me standing and watching as a taxi cab driver runs over the gravel mound for $20 is causing me to laugh out loud a little )

If anyone has any other ideas please feel free to share.


ALSO - if anyone has had experience growing glosso in a dry start, please let me know, because that may preclude the concern I am addressing in trying to reduce the size of the flourite granules to begin with.



Daniel

 

[Tom Barr]

See if you could sell the 12-15 bags of flourite first.
Be cheaper than getting it ground up to finer sizes.

Then use the $ for black flourite.
That's what I'd do.
Gloss is fine either way.
This is more about aesthetics, not whether gloss will grow in it and form a thick weedy mat, there's no doubt plain flourite is fine there.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Daniel Morris]

Actually Tom, that definitely seems like the best option. I was getting tired of the old red 'rusty' look of the flourite anyway and I've had it for years, so this is perfect.

What about growing glosso in a dry start? I'm expecting that glosso or even HC would be fine for that, but thought I would see what the experience has been.

 

[VaughnH]

I was able to dry start glosso in a ten gallon tank. I planted most of it by cutting the sprigs into little two leaf short plantlets, then using tweezers to poke each one half way into the substrate (Black flourite sand in my case). But, I also just scattered some of them on the top of the substrate and most of them rooted too.

The tank didnt turn out well because I had too weak a light setup, no CO2, and little interest in seeing it through to a final aquascape - I just wanted to see how the dry start method would work.

 

[Daniel Morris]

Thanks for your reply Vaughn. I'm going to give the dry start a shot and try to get a glosso lawn growing.

If I can't sell the flourite I may just give it another shot.

 

[cggorman]

I'm currently dry-starting HC in mineralized soil. Rough couple weeks at the start, but it's going well now. I kept cooking it with too much light, too close to the plants....too impatient... I pulled the light back to about 24" and set it on a 20 hour timer. I also sprinkle with tank water every couple days.