I have only had this substrate for two weeks in a frshwater tank I have just started cycling, and thus far my water parameters have all been acceptable to excellent (including pH)! While I am an experienced exotic pet owner and hold a Zoology & Botany B.S., this is my first time in years starting up a tank, so no experience necessary :) The only thing I did to prep this substrate was rinse, and I mean RINSE. I spent a little more than an hour just rinsing the substrate because it leeches so much dust. Your water will become a dark purple/black if you do not rinse the life out if it, and it may help with pH issues as well! Note: I have only very recently planted the tank and have not added any fish/shrimp to the tank yet, so I cannot speak to it's long-term compatibility with aquatic life.

I am a bit torn abut 10 days into using this substrate. This is NOT a frugal person’s Fluval Stratum or Aquasoil. As someone else reviewed, they are almost perfectly round balls, just a bit bigger than BBs. As such, they “flow” easily making it challenging to stack up and to plant. I also think they let more uneaten food and waste to get into the substrate than most gravels and certainly more than sand. That could be good or bad. In short, these doubts are just that and not necessarily criticism. It has taken a bit longer than I hoped for the water to clear despite thoroughly rinsing the gravel. Of course, I am also cycling the environment and am using minimal mechanical filtration so it probably would have cleared sooner in an established tank with a large filter. On the positive side, I think the color and appearance is quite nice. I am planning to have a colony of yellow neocaridina shrimp in the nano tank I set up with this substrate and their color should “pop” nicely. Assuming it is clay as I read somewhere, its porosity should hold a. healthy amount of bacteria and might help hold liquid fertilizers. I did add root tabs when I set up the aquarium (which was challenging given the perfectly round shape of the pebbles), and I hope my plants thrive. Would I buy it again? Probably not for a planted aquarium. Even though the discounted price is really, really attractive, substrate is something that is not trivial to change and lasts a long time thereby amortizing the price difference over the life of the set up makes it not that much more costly in the long run. I think I will finally start splurging on the substrate I use with planted aquariums I intend to keep set up for a long time.

Thought this would be a cheaper alternative to the Fluval. But (IMO) it looks completely unnatural. Looks like breakfast cereal! The Fluval has smaller grain and looks more natural. Can't comment on actual plant growing but I'm sure it's fine.

Great shrimp n snail substrate Low dust No sharp edges My plants love it too

Bought one 5# bag for my 10g m8xed with 5# puple gravel. My plants are doing great. I have amazon sword, dwarf hair grass,micro sward grass and anubis (might have spelt wrong) for a planted betta aquarium.

this is so much better than the fluval black. much less messy and doesnt cloud up the water, heavy weight will not get sucked up by vacuum. don't get fluval, it's impossible to clean! I'll be replacing all of my fluval with this stuff.

I have plants/snails/fish all seem to love this stuff. my water is very soft and this stuff keeps my PH up 2 points, that's good for my soft water but if you are in a area with hard water it could be a issue.

After months of trying to figure out what was going on in my daughter's tank we discovered that this gravel was the culprit. It literally says "plant and shrimp" substrate but it raises the PH so high that it is killing the shrimp.