CaribSea Midnight Black Floramax Premium Aquarium Substrate

I don't know what's up with some of the negative reviews, but I absolutely love this substrate! There's better ones our there, such as ADA Amazonia, but they're also much more expensive. With Floramax, IMO, you get a quality substrate which has a high CEC (cationic exchange capacity) which enables this substrate to absorb nutrients from the water (when you dose with ferts, in addition to when your fish poop) and to time release it to the root system of your plants. Plus there's 'some' trace elements already in this substrate (which is essentially a form of lava rock. Floramax and Eco-Complete are essentially the same product. Only real difference is that Eco-Complete comes with that bacteria water which makes the bag heavier, so in essence, you get more substrate by buying floramax because the weight accurately indicates how much substrate you're getting. If you want to really supercharge this substrate, get some Seachem Flourish root tabs and strategically embed them throughout the substrate, depending on how you plan to plant your tank.

Anyway, I totally gutted out my old gravel substrate and replaced it with this. I rinsed the Floramax thoroughly before adding it in. I planted a bunch of stem plants, dwarf hair grass, vals, and hygros and got some great results. Of course I added a co2 injection system, albeit DIY, and dose ferts with my excellent lighting. Look up one of my videos on youtube by searching "Nano Cube 12g FW Planted Update 2012" and you'll see what I mean. Also, I didn't experience any cloudiness. I just followed the instructions and after adding in the substrate and filling my tank with water, I used the enclosed packet of bio-magnet to help remove the fine particles that can be suspended in the water to cause cloudiness.

Hope this helps... I'm convinced this is a good substrate for the value!

I bought this substrate about 3 months ago knowing nothing about it. I had never used a plant substrate before and since it said minimal rinsing may be needed all I did was dump the whole bag in a bucket, added some water, and dumped out the slightly cloudy water. Added it to my tank, filled the tank slowly and turned on my filter. I will admit it was really cloudy...but only for about 45 minutes. I let it sit over night and then added plants and deco.

So far I have not had any problems with it. I have a peacock eel that likes to burrow and it doesn't stir up any "residue" or make the water cloudy.

I'll be buying another few bags off Amazon in the next few week for a new tank.

My advice, if it clouds your water just be patient and let the filter clear it up. A lot of people want it perfectly clear right off the bat so they can add fish and get that going, just relax and let it do its thing.

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I bought FloraMax from my local Petsmart, I wanted to set up a 10-gal shrimp aquarium with live plants, using a black plant-growing substrate, and this was the only stuff they had on the shelves that was the right color. I tried to wash it as thoroughly as I could before putting it into the aquarium, but even with pouring bucketfulls of black murky water down the bathroom sink when washing off the substrate, my aquarium still was dark and cloudy for a day before it settled down. Okay, that's kind of expected, so I didn't mind it too much.

After putting the shrimps into the aquarium, I later decided this wasn't a good substrate for a nano shrimp tank (gravel was too big--the gravel pellets were almost as big as they were) and I had a hard time keeping the plants in the gravel, it was ultra hard to plant them because of the large size and light weight of the gravel bits. I emptied out all the shrimps/snails and then took out all the substrate. Immediately the water turned back into a big black murky mess as soon as I started to grab handfuls of the stuff out. I ended up baking all the substrate in the oven to dry it so I could put it into storage, and was astonished by the amount of silt that was still there, even after everything I had done. Discovered that the large-sized pieces of substrate just crumble into smaller pieces if you crush it between your fingers, no wonder I couldn't get the stuff clean.

A better product is Eco-Complete Plant Substrate, put that in my 29-gal a few months ago and couldn't be happier with the way it turned out, no washing required, looks great, and the plants are doing well. Buy it instead of the FloraMax.

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*warning: newb w/ aquarium and plants...read following comments accordingly*

Reworked my 3 gallon betta tank today by removing Oscar, all live plants, decorations, and white gravel (the hell was I thinking?) and replacing it with the Floramax substrate. No....I didn't rinse it first. Yes it was very, very dirty/cloudy (couldn't see bottom) but I expected this. I added substrate, plants, then water mixed with the clarifying agent and turned on my bio-sponge filter. It took a total of about 45 minutes of filtration on high to attain a damn near crystal clear tank. Once I checked the temperature and water parameters, I gently added Oscar and his two pet Oto algae eaters. Oscar has been buzzing about, as much as a betta will, checking out his tank and seems relatively content. The two otos have darted around and settled into their manic cleaning mode.

I'll edit this in a few days just to make sure everything shakes out well. So far, very good.

3 gallon tank

bio-sponge filter

1 demanding betta

2 spazzy otocinclus cats

green cryptocoryne

nana anubias

el nino fern

green horemanii sword

2 marimo balls

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Great substrate for my planted fluval spec V. Color is really nice makes the plants pop and am having great growth with it as well. No cloudiness issues like others but I did clean it a bit before putting it in.