Best substrate for planted tanks by far
935836
Best substrate for planted tanks by far. Looks great, makes cycling easier, and has enough porosity to not become anaerobic easily when you make large slopes. Compared to fluorite/eco-complete/other clay substrates I have gotten much better growth with ADA Aquasoil. With extremely small plants I would recommend topping it off with powder type aquasoil to ensure the plants root well.
4291525
Amazing light fixture for planted aquarium. I attained it but it's got enough light emission to provide plants with plenty of light. I had two on my 10 gallon--a bit too much light but I wanted even lighting. Best bang for your buck, they're still working today. I believe I've had them almost a year now. A must buy for budget lights.
2522436
Excellent for water gardens and fish ponds.

I've bought these in all available sizes for various plants. Don't hesitate to buy them.

My only recommendation is to do a calculation about volume of planting medium. Or buy all three sizes-- small, medium, and large. If you are the kind of person who is looking at these and reading this review, you've probably got numerous planting projects ahead of you, so you'll probably use them, and you will figure out the volume by experience. And this way you won't be disappointed when you find you have too small or too large a planter. I've used crushed slate as the medium, and I've found that a couple of these planters will quickly consume a bag of the stuff.

And don't forget to wash your planting medium if its for a fish pond. These will actually contain some of the silt once in place, but you want to start with well rinsed medium. Good luck!
869166
I absolutely love these plants. They do seem to be silk, not softer plastic like other plants, and a careful examination showed no rough parts or bits that could snag my betta's delicate fins. They fit perfectly in my 5 gallon aquarium, and the wide leaves splay out beautifully and give a lot of surfaces for him to rest on. They are the perfect height to give some plant cover on the upper half of his aquarium - I had gotten him taller "silk" plants before from Petco, and they were so rough they tore his fins in several places. Since then I've had only live plants, which are very short because he's in a low light aquarium and it can't support larger live plants.

I've had my betta for about a year in a heated, filtered, 5 gallon aquarium with plenty of live plants and decorations. He has NEVER made a bubble nest, which honestly distressed me a little bit. A few days after adding these plants, he blew the largest, spittiest bubble nest I've ever seen right next to one of them. Now he sits on his betta hammock and admires it and widens it daily. I don't know if these taller plants gave him the plant cover near the surface of the water to make him feel secure enough to make a nest or what, but these plants were the only things I changed about his tank. Five stars!
198885
I use Eco-Complete in my 10 gallon freshwater tank. I have java ferns, wisteria, foxtail, anubias nana, and dwarf baby tears who have all taken off since being planted in this substrate. The dark color makes your tropical fish's colors really stand out. Would recommend this substrate to anyone who wants to start a planted tank. 20 pounds is enough for a 10 gallon. The fact that you don't have to wash this substrate is good too.
3500491
Perfect amount of pea gravel, charcoal, potting soil, and sphagnum moss for my small terrarium. I did not end up with leftover materials.
111116
This stuff is awesome. I recently got into making terrariums and this is the perfect soil. I only add water once a month maybe and the plants are doing great.
3607416
WARNING: Open this in the tank. I nearly screwed that up, but decided I was clumsy enough if I didn't, I'd have soil all over the floor. As soon as I got it open water poured out. It filled about an inch of my 20 gallon. Once all the soil was out, the water sat in puddles on top of it.

I put grass seeds on it, and within a week they were sprouting quite well. This seems a great foundation for a planted aquarium.

When I poured the water it moved, but didn't cloud things up, and I'm very happy about that. I thought I'd need to wait a while for it to settle, but there was no need. It did leave a little divot that three of the guppies like to play in. The guppies seem very happy with this. When I move the frog and cory in, I'll post how they seems to take to it. They will be the fussiest residents.
615555
I am a beginner at all things aquarium.  Sure I had one when I was a kid, but I really didn't get the whole balance thing.  What inspired me to try again is the planted aquarium craze.  It is not an easy adventure to start out but it is very rewarding once you get it all balanced and growing.

This is my second tank.  It has worked great for planting.  I love it!!!  It is put together nicely.  Love the rounded corners!  Also, love that the filter and light are all in one in a corner of the tank (wish it had a heater in there too).  It makes it look cleaner, cords aren't hanging out the back side everywhere.  The light that comes with the tank has been growing my plants.  Granted I have chosen plants that are beginners and don't need a ton of light.

Overall, this was a very easy tank to put together and keep.  I would definitely recommend!!
4718861
My aquatic plants are doing great in this substrate and it is a great tank starter for getting good bacteria going quickly.
4117308
I've been using this for about three years now in my main planted tank and I must say it has been everything I expected and more. It roots relatively well and holds plants in place nicely until roots are formed. There are large and small pieces ranging from fine sand to about the size of a 1/2 marble in the bag so it give the bottom a natural look, not too much uniformity but enough to make it appealing to the eye and the black color is perfect. It took about 7 bags to cover the bottom of a 55 gallon tank to an acceptable level. One bag did a 10 gallon tank with no problem. I like around three inches of substrate.

I used injected CO2 and T5HO lighting on a 55 gal tank and just added a second tank. The price here on Amazon is by far the best when you use Prime (shipping, not the chemical - lol). This stuff will cloud the water for a little bit so if you are adding to an existing tank, shut off the filters or else you'll have more maintenance to do. It settles out pretty quickly.

I compared the new bag I just got to the stuff in the bottom of my 3 year old tank and it has faded a bit but not much. I could probably do a little digging and get some fresh looking stuff on the surface but I like the look of it after all that time.
3621959
Awesome aquascape supplement! I was dealing with brown algae in my tank. Used another product to remove the silicates. The other product removed the phosphorous as well which caused a  black beard algae bloom. I now pre-filter the water to remove some of the silicates before adding it to my tank. Excel does an awesome job of keeping both from becoming a problem.  It doesn't seem to cause any problems. I have Neon tetras, chili rasboras, pheonix rasboras, oto cats, amano and cherry shrimps.
Excel also caused my plants to grow super fast. Having to cut back several plants each week. Great stuff.
3524603
Had an Aquarium person install this medium and Aquatic Planting Medium for my 55 gal Aquarium.
It looks great and with these two medium I expect to have great live Plants.
1343218
Struggled to grow a DHG carpet with other non soil or aquasoil substrates with a low tech tank.  Switched to this, and within a month had a complete, dense carpet.
3243171
I bought this for my ten gallon tank filled with plants to rim my amazon sword is now thriving and growing many new leaves also a plant that detached from a pod had a 5% grow and 2 days after I got API C02 booster it grew a new leaf in 3 days overall I will be buying more when I'm out

  hope this helps
1547059
In combination with either Flourite or Eco-complete substrates, I've used Excel for years for my planted tanks.  With zero buffering capacity (kh) in the pH 8 well water I had, using a CO2 system guaranteed gorgeous plants but dead fish because of the resulting the wide swings of pH.  Excel allows me to have a low tech tank and works wonders for the low to medium light plants that I prefer (crypts, anubias, java ferns, along with higher light wisteria and egeria densa used to combat algae from getting established before the plants do).  I now have pH7 water with 2 degrees of hardness and will continue with Excel.  For my latest tank (20 long), I've been adding 2ml every day -- it took a month for the plants to establish and start growing.  I'll taper off to every other day soon.  I expected the crypts to completely melt when first planted because, well, they are crypts and that's what they do.  But they didn't melt and are already putting out new leaves and coloring up nicely.  This tank also has 2 small Amazon swords planted in the higher light areas of the tank -- they lost their original leaves (they were grown emerged) and now have beautiful truly submerged foliage.  I don't have any luck using liquid fertilizers or laterite - I'm amazed at all the different kinds of algae I managed to grow when I used them. By using Excel and adding Osmocote pelleted fertilizer deep under the substrate just where heavy feeding plants' roots are, that seems to limit excess nutrients.  I've heard that egeria densa doesn't do well with Excel but mine is doing great and growing like a weed while floating over the top of the water.  It's never affected my fish, snails or shrimp either.
735283
My cryptocorynes and my amazon sword really love me when I put these in the substrate, just make sure you put more in every few months so they have a good supply of nutrients. high quality product!