Hi Folks-

I recently decided to change out the 3-year-old Flourite in half of my
tank. I have heard that it "runs out" of available nutrient after two-
three years and I have noticed that some of my plants have really
started trailing off recently, particularly Java Fern. On that side of
the tank, the Flourite was pretty much packed with roots. I had to
literally cut out chunks of root-choked gravel.

Anyway, I needed 3 bags of Flourite, but the store only had 2. They did
have plenty of Flourite Red, so I got a bag of that to pick up the
slack. I'm familiar with Flourite's dustiness so I rinsed those two
bags to prepare them.

When I rinsed the bag of Flourite Red, WOW. It had probably 5 times the
amount of fines in there!!! It took forever to rinse it.

Is this normal? I haven't found lots of references to the red variety,
although I did find one other reference to it being more dusty.

Anyway, I thought this was pretty bizarre. Anybody out there have
experience with Flourite Red?

Marc