Fish kicked the bucket during a water change....

[RD.]

Another review that mentioned a dead fish....

Anthony Abelardo
2.0 out of 5 starsfish died..
October 12, 2018
Verified Purchase
Added this to the bottom of an empty tank then added water, an hour or so later added the fish but it was still so cloudy it's like the fish died from smoke inhilation.

The picture from the other people look nice though. Maybe I'm inexperienced. I had the fish for probably almost a year. It ate all the other fish and snails. I changed out the tank because of snails and out of control moss bloom.


…...…...……………...


Really no telling what the cause was in any of these dead fish, but it leaves me wondering how many other folks had a fish or two die off shortly after adding this sand, and never posted a bad review anywhere?

After spending some time on google, there appears to be more mystery fish death complaints, including on the Seachem forums.

Flourite Substrate Cardinal Tetras Clarity Plants and poor quality instructions - Seachem Support Forums

Discussions regarding Seachem plant products and the keeping of planted aquaria in general

www.seachem.com

"Following the directions on the package the use of Seachem Flourite, wasted $14 of water, killed as of today, 5 of my cardinal tetras ($25), which are the first deaths in 2yrs 9months, ruined the color of all my plants by covering them in dust ($45+) which must be brushed off since it does not rinse off, and doing so damages the leaves. Most importantly however the use of Flourite wasted about 6 hrs of my life (priceless but if you paid, worth about 12 an hr to me = $72). This is not mentioning all the frustration esp when losing fish that you have had for 3 years.
Total cost of using Flourite THUS FAR = $151. This does not include the $60 I paid for the substrate."



The person above had a pretty good sense of humour over it all, seems relatively intelligent, and experienced enough to understand that his recent fish deaths wasn't just a coinky-dink. The Seachem rep basically blamed him for adding the sand incorrectly. Nice.


I know that none of this is conclusive, but if I was in Vegas I'd be betting it all on black.

 

[Niki_up]

This is the review that caught my eye, there was 1 or two more that mentioned fish dying shortly after adding the sand.

0 out of 5 stars Killed my goldfish of 6 years and broken filter
November 2, 2018
Verified Purchase
Absolutely mortified!!!!if I can give zero stars I would.i had two goldfish of 6 years that mysteriously died after using this sand,they were fine at first,second day they were sitting on the sand floor,next morning dead babies .Not to be that person,but my fish were like family.i washed the sand about 10 times and ended up still being very dark grey in my tank and that hasnt settled whatsoever.Theres dust on every surface in the tank and it completely destroyed my filter/impeller on my recently purchase marineland penguin 350.Me listening to everyone saying flourite sand is the way to go incase I want to get into aquarium plants in the future and that it's better than gravel made me take the plunge but if I had known this was going to be the outcome for me I would of steered clear.Absolutely horrible and unacceptable,I've done everything everyone else did to prep the sand,idk maybe something weird got into the sand,I have no clue but i pray nobody has the same experience as me!!






No, not a temp issue, Niki already noted that the temp was within a few degrees of the tank. As far as winter setting in, we are already hitting well below 0F for some time now, as well as snow. Niki lives north of me, so yeah, it's freakin cold here. lol Cold water directly out of the tap is in the 40's, no one in these parts fills directly from a cold water line this time of the year, especially when doing 80%+ water changes.

I totally missed backfromthedead’s comment. I definitely wouldn’t have any fish if I was filling up with hose water....I probably wouldn’t even be doing water changes as the lines freeze....

I fill up my tanks from the shower water, I don’t actually temperature test to know how many degrees the water if off by, I just go by the location of the cold/hot gauge on the shower and use my personal judgement of touch. Too cold for me, too cold for fish, just right for me, too warm for fish, feels ok to me but not enough to shower in should be good for fish...and as it fills it slowly gets a little cooler

 

[Niki_up]

Oh i see. Like i said out of left field.

Sounds like we can start making a case against this sand though. What the hell kind of company makes aquarium sand that kills fish?

It’s a nice looking sand though. The comment about it looking ashy/brown is correct...it’s not too black but almost looks natural. Adds some contract to the jet black background

kind of hard to see with the many reflections happening, but I do like it.

 

[RD.]

Sounds like this substrate is clay based, which certainly explains why it is so dirty, but I don't know what the connection would be to it causing death in some of the fish that are exposed to it?

 

[Niki_up]

Another review that mentioned a dead fish....

Anthony Abelardo
2.0 out of 5 starsfish died..
October 12, 2018
Verified Purchase
Added this to the bottom of an empty tank then added water, an hour or so later added the fish but it was still so cloudy it's like the fish died from smoke inhilation.

The picture from the other people look nice though. Maybe I'm inexperienced. I had the fish for probably almost a year. It ate all the other fish and snails. I changed out the tank because of snails and out of control moss bloom.


…...…...……………...


Really no telling what the cause was in any of these dead fish, but it leaves me wondering how many other folks had a fish or two die off shortly after adding this sand, and never posted a bad review anywhere?

After spending some time on google, there appears to be more mystery fish death complaints, including on the Seachem forums.

Flourite Substrate Cardinal Tetras Clarity Plants and poor quality instructions - Seachem Support Forums

Discussions regarding Seachem plant products and the keeping of planted aquaria in general

www.seachem.com

"Following the directions on the package the use of Seachem Flourite, wasted $14 of water, killed as of today, 5 of my cardinal tetras ($25), which are the first deaths in 2yrs 9months, ruined the color of all my plants by covering them in dust ($45+) which must be brushed off since it does not rinse off, and doing so damages the leaves. Most importantly however the use of Flourite wasted about 6 hrs of my life (priceless but if you paid, worth about 12 an hr to me = $72). This is not mentioning all the frustration esp when losing fish that you have had for 3 years.
Total cost of using Flourite THUS FAR = $151. This does not include the $60 I paid for the substrate."



The person above had a pretty good sense of humour over it all, seems relatively intelligent, and experienced enough to understand that his recent fish deaths wasn't just a coinky-dink. The Seachem rep basically blamed him for adding the sand incorrectly. Nice.


I know that none of this is conclusive, but if I was in Vegas I'd be betting it all on black.

Actually now that I think about it more I use this sand in another tank of mine and I switched it out this year....it is the tank all my other flying foxes passed away in. I’m also missing quite a few cardinals from that tank as well (approximately 11 cardinals gone, 4 flying foxes. Granted 3 cardinals were pecked off by the angelfish)

im now on board with the sand issues, especially with other people’s reviews

 

[RD.]

I may have found the smoking gun ……..

seachem.it

This domain may be for sale!

www.seachem.it

Q:What is the mineral content of Flourite™? How can you compare Iron content of laterite vs. Flourite™?


A: Flourite™ is a red clay based gravel that is rich in ferric iron. Comparing Flourite™ and laterite on the basis of their iron content alone is not a really valid comparison since they are really quite different products (the old apple and oranges argument). Their iron content is going to be roughly pretty similar, but with each the actual content can vary from lot to lot. Since we don't market it as an iron supplement, we don't make any claims on exactly how much iron it delivers to the water per se. What it does do though is provide a rich source of iron (more than enough to last years) for rooting plants... the plants are able to extract the iron from the Flourite™. There are also other features of Flourite which make it superior to laterite: (1) laterite is intended as a substrate supplement, i.e. you add it to your gravel... by itself it is not a suitable substrate because it will quickly break apart into, well, dirt (2) Flourite™ is by itself a suitable substrate because it remains solid, does not fall apart,and can be cleaned and gravel vacuumed without unduly upsetting the substrate.



Q: I've heard that Flourite's™ content of arsenic is 18 ppm. Any comments on this?


A: We are currently investigating this claim and will make our findings public when we have all the facts. However, all iron containing substrates (even laterite) contain around 5 ppm of arsenic (as insoluble ores (aresenopyrite or orpiment)). The keyword here is "insoluble" because if either of these ores were in any way soluble the water would contain far beyond the 0.05 - 12 ppm toxicity that plants show toward arsenic. The fact that thousands of people use this product in their planted tanks without a single incident of plant death (on the contrary, all we hear are stories of fantastic growth!), is a strong indicator that no arsenic is being leached.

.................................

Not a single incident of plant death says Seachem - no mention of incidents of fish death. Hmmmm.

Here's my take from that, if the iron can vary from lot to lot, so can other elements, such as arsenic.
I'm not a chemist, nor do I have the slightest clue how high iron content, or arsenic, impact any species of finfish. My guess is that at high enough levels, arsenic doesn't always result in a happy ending for many fish.

I'm not sure how this would compare between the different types of Flourite? Here's the mineral break down by Seachem. http://www.seachem.it/support/GravelMineralComposition.pdf

 

[RD.]

As I said previously, I am no chemist. I'm not even sure if the Al shown on that Seachem chart refers to aluminum, or iron oxide, as both elements seem to use the same Al designation? But I have found a few papers that demonstrate that at high enough levels, they can have a very negative effect on the gills of fish.

Chronic exposure of tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) to iron oxide nanoparticles: Effects of particle morphology on accumulation, elimination, hematology and immune responses - PMC

Effects of chronic exposure to alpha and gamma iron oxide nanoparticles (α-Fe2O3 and γ-Fe2O3 NPs) were investigated through exposure of tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) to 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 mg/L (9.2×10−4, 4.6×10−3 and 9.2×10−3 mM) aqueous suspensions ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Toxicity Assessment of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Early Life Stages - PMC

Iron oxide nanoparticles have been explored recently for their beneficial applications in many biomedical areas, in environmental remediation, and in various industrial applications. However, potential risks have also been identified with the ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

http://vri.cz/docs/vetmed/59-11-573.pdf

Perhaps the solubility of these elements, and their effect on various fish, is dependant on the fish keepers tank water parameters, and at high enough levels some fish simply cannot survive?

Just all wild speculation on my part.
Perhaps someone with a chemisty/fish background can make better sense out of all of this.

 

[Niki_up]

I’m quite intrigued at the turn of events on this thread.

thank you RD for actually doing the leg work are fining info that may pertain to the problem I’ve had (and some others it seems)

I cannot wait to have some free time to read the studies.