Ultum Nature Systems Controsoil - Freshwater Aqua Soil Substrate for Fish, Shrimp, Live Plant Propagation and Aquascaping - 6.8pH Low Ammonia, Volcanic Ash - Brown, Normal (3 Liter)

I started using this for all my TC’s and young Alocasias and I can’t say enough good things. Gives my little baby plants amazing roots and strength. Only drawback is I tell everyone about it and now it’s harder to order cause it seems to be out of stock. Guess I’ll need to stock up more when it comes back.

So I noticed a lot of people on here are suggesting to rinse this product, regardless of the instructions saying not to rinse. I decided to try rinsing half of the bag come to find out that if you do so the product becomes mushy very quickly. At first it seems to release a lot of mud brown water but quickly deteriorate. Basically they are little mud balls. For some reason, I expected them to be some kind of harder rock like material. Maybe somethings similar to sand but instead, it is quite squishy, so basically the less you touch it the better the product retains its solid shape. Personally, I would suggest not to rinse this. And when you add water, add a very gentle stream without disturbing the product as much as possible.As far as how well plants grow in this, I will update.

Great stuff but the cost.

I was hoping these would be bigger in size but there is a decent mix of size in there. I just would prefer them to be larger in size. Nice replacement for Fluval Stratum.

Not breaking down like the others have and making a mess. Looks great.