Flocculants: Do they cause clay to load up your riffles?

[Tonto]

I'm running pay classified to 1/8" from a bench placer. The gold is fine, but plentiful. As usual, the clay is a problem, so I decided to use a flocculant to help keep the recirculated water as clean as possible. I ran a five gallon bucket without the flocculant, and decided to double check the efficiency of the sluice by making a second run of the same pay. This time I added a flocculant to the water.

Within a few minutes the riffles began to fill with clay the entire length of the sluice. It wouldn't clean out no matter how much water I allowed to run, which would have also washed the fine gold away. The clay just sat there.

The sluice is a clean up type with shallow riffles to begin with, and although I found a few specks of gold, I watched some wash into the tailings bucket at proper water management. I don't think I'll use flocculant anymore, at least not in the mini-clean up sluice.

Anybody else have this issue with flocculants? If flocculant loads up mini-riffles, wouldn't it do the same in a full sized, recirculating sluice?

 

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[Aufisher]

Maybe more settling time in a basin would help

 

[Bodfish Mike]

Thanks for the post.
I learned a new word " flocculant "
Clarifying agent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Tonto]

Maybe more settling time in a basin would help

I'm going to try that very thing today. I suspect that the same thing will happen, but it's a good experiment.

 

[Tonto]

Maybe more settling time in a basin would help

I ran some more tailings with the flocculant after it had settled all night. It still loaded the riffles. I pretty sure I'm done with flocculant.

 

[Mudwiggle]

You want a dispersant, there's a product called Calgon which is cheap (Sodium Hexametaphosphate). Flocculant causes the clay particles to agglomerate, and become heavier, hence the settling out in the riffles.
Dispersant separates the clay from it's natural, flocculated state.

As a guide, it takes about 10ml of 10% calgon solution to disperse 1.5kg of clay.

Mudwiggle
(clay mine employee)

 

[Tonto]

Thanks, Mudwiggle. That's exactly the solution I was looking for. I guess I'll let Calgon "take me away". (Remember the commercial?)

 

[benny]

You want a dispersant, there's a product called Calgon which is cheap (Sodium Hexametaphosphate). Flocculant causes the clay particles to agglomerate, and become heavier, hence the settling out in the riffles.
Dispersant separates the clay from it's natural, flocculated state.

As a guide, it takes about 10ml of 10% calgon solution to disperse 1.5kg of clay.

Mudwiggle
(clay mine employee)

Yup. DeFlocculant
Flocculation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[itspaidfor]

Sodium silicate or "water glass works well"

 

[GoldpannerDave]

You want a dispersant, there's a product called Calgon which is cheap (Sodium Hexametaphosphate). Flocculant causes the clay particles to agglomerate, and become heavier, hence the settling out in the riffles.
Dispersant separates the clay from it's natural, flocculated state.

As a guide, it takes about 10ml of 10% calgon solution to disperse 1.5kg of clay.

Mudwiggle
(clay mine employee)

Does the new Calgon water softener also work? It is different. "Today, Calgon water softener contains the active ingredients zeolite and polycarboxylate."

 

[Tonto]

I've been reading up on Sodium Hexametaphospate. Since it is a phosphate, it causes algea blooms anywhere phosphates are introduced to water bodies. Consequently, most cleaning agents or bath salts no longer contain phosphates. My wife bought some Calgon, and there were no phosphates on the label. I'm going to try the bath beads even though they stink like lavender! I also started looking at diatomaceous earth as it is used as a water filtering medium. I doubt I'll be able to do anything with DE since it would take a fairly sophisticated system to filter the water. But, I ain't done yet...and thanks to y'all, I'm learning...and it ain't true you can't teach an old dog!

 

[benny]

This has been discussed before on TN. Read this post.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/panning-gold/381936-panning-dirt-can-anyone-help.html#post3758481