It looks to be variable in quality if I had bad luck with it and James found it fine. ADA aquasoil is very good, columbo similarly good but without the ammonia spike, plus it's cheaper per 1l. The columbo is much darker than ada when wet, closer to black and seems heavier in the hand. I've not tried plants in it yet though, I'd imagine it's fine. It depends on what you want really. Both are very similar in terms of quality, it's just that they have upsides and downsides like anything. At the end of the day success will come down to maintenance, light management, co2 management and good ferts. You can grow plants in gravel if you're really good at all of the above!