Planted tank and flourite substrate

I am trying to do a nice planted tank and and decided to use flourite for the substrate. One web site that I had looked at said not to rinse the flourite first, just put it in and add water. This created an incredibly muddy mess... so I siphoned of the water, refilled the tank, and repeated that several times to help clear the water. It is still quite muddy. My question is, should I just let this settle - or should I rinse the flourite off? I am reluctant to leave it as is, since any little disturbance in the surface of the flourite just sets off another cloud of dust.

It might not seem like it now, but it will settle, a bio-film will form around all the particles and it will not fly around. I can stir up my flourite and nothing lifts up (except some detritus). Try to fill the tank one last time with low water pressure on to a plate, and then let it settle with no filtration or turbulence for a day or two.

Good choice, I use flourite too and it works nicely... The plants go nuts in it. I had the same issue with cloudiness when I first set up the tank... It should disappear within a week or so... if you want to speed up the process, use some sort of colloidal water-clearing agent (Acurel F works the best in my experience). Though I usually advise the safest and most natural route, wait it out.

I didn't rinse mine (two 90 gal. tanks), but covered it with an inch of BB size gravel, fully planted and did a fishless cycle. However I did have to clean the pre-filters and sponges within the filter every day for a week or so........ Frank