# Washing Akadama



## Neophyte (5 Oct 2010)

Hi All,

I'm setting up a 4' * 2' * 18" tank to replace my 3'

I'm going to use Akadama with a Peat moss base as the substrate. I bought 3 * 14ltr bags of the hard quality double red line as sugested in many posts.

I emptied all 3 bags into a plastic bin, by which time the bin was full to withing a inche of the top. Stuck the hose pipe in & beagn to rinse it out by agitating the akadama by hand. As expected, the water turned redish/orange & stayed that way. After an hour, I just left the hose pipe in & allowed it to rinse. Several hours later, & the water was still very cloudy redish brown. Turned the hose pipe of, & left it to the next day. The "dust" had settled & there was a sludgey mud on top of the Akadama, I stirred it up, emptied the water out & began the rinsing again, same thing, redish brown water. By this time the Akadama level is at approx 2/3 of the way up the bucket, a drop of around 4"    I expected it to settle, but this seems a lot. Anyhow, after a few more hours of rinsing, the water is still a muddy reddish brown & doesn't seem to be clearing? The Akadama level has dropped again    It isn't being washed away with the water, there's no Akadama outside the bucket at all, just a muddy sludge. If I leave it to stand, the water clears & just leaves a mud on top of the Akadama.

I'm worried that the Akadama is eroding away to a dust as I rinse it, has anyone else come across this? Has anyone who used Akadama & rinsed it got the water to run clear?

TIA


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## Themuleous (5 Oct 2010)

You'll never get the water to run clear and to be honest, as its clay you'll probably just end up washing it all down the drain as it slowly dissolve into the water.  

Once you get it in the tank and allow it to settle, the water in the tank will clear in a day or two 

San


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## Neophyte (5 Oct 2010)

Cheers, I'll leave it as it is & see how much more I need once it's in the tank. It'll be a week or two before I put it in the tank, I'm planning on leaving it in the bucket & change the water daily, hopefully it'll help with the spiking associated with Akadama.


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## Themuleous (5 Oct 2010)

Neophyte said:
			
		

> hopefully it'll help with the spiking associated with Akadama.



What makes you say this?  Akadama is inert, so there shouldn't be any spiking.  ADA aquasoil has an NH3 spike associated with it?

SAm


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## Neophyte (6 Oct 2010)

Spiking is probably the wrong phrase, I was going on James' post 

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=741



> You now have two choices. If you are not concerned about the KH dropping sharply then the Akadama can just be placed straight in the tank and used straight away. It is advisable to do very regular large water changes to dampen the KH changes. It took two weeks of almost daily water changes until my tank settled down. The other choice is to pre-treat the Akadama with a strong GH solution to speed up this process out of the tank. After a week soaking, rinse well and use in the tank. Any KH drop should now be minimised



Hoping that, by replacing the water daily the KH drop would be minimal by the time I put it in the tank as a number of people say they carried out as much as 90% daily water changes for weeks before it settled down?


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## Themuleous (6 Oct 2010)

Oh right, I see  yeh the water changes should help curb any fluctuation in the KH.

Sam


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