Aqua One - 'Aqua plant plus'?

[mungo]

Has anyone tried this substrate? My LFS has a selection of Aqua One sands and gravels. Mostly of the 'barbie pink' variety, apart from this one.

It's mostly small balls, and definitely a soil or clay based product. It's hard and porous like a baked clay, but has a strong composty smell from the bag, which I wouldn't expect from a pure baked clay product? I'm not sure if it's inert or contains nutrients. A bit dusty, but clears up after a few rinses.

I can't find anything about it on the net, even on the manufacturers site. It came in a 2kg bag, and was the same price as the other gravels. I bought some as a cap for a nano soil tank, mainly as it was the nicest looking substrate I could find in a small bag.

Here are some photos. One in my hand, and one in a freshly flooded tank (I didn't rinse this batch at all):

 

[mungo]

Oops, here are the photos:

 

[Andy Thurston]

Never seen it or heard of it but i like the look of it and might be tempted to use it in the future. I couldn't tell you if it has nutrients or not but it will probably have good cec and no nutrients. If you dose the water column properly it shouldn't matter

 

[Edvet]

it's called "Nano substrate black" on their website it seems,
http://www.aquaone.co.uk/documents/aqua-one-gravel.pdf
http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105678

 

[mungo]

Thanks guys.

For an update, the substrate has been flooded for two days now. It does kick up a fair amount of dust when disturbed, although it seems like that's pretty common. I probably should have rinsed it, but didn't want to wash off any nutrients which may have been there. If it keeps on clouding, I'll probably thoroughly rinse another half bag and then use that to cap my cap.

It also seems to have got a bit softer after being soaked, in that I can now crush a grain by squeezing fairly hard. I'm going to keep it, as it's cheap, looks good, and should work well.

I should be able to borrow a TDS meter soon, so I'll do a 'bottle test' and report back on how it affects water parameters (can't do this in tank, as I also have a base of aquatic compost).