Ultum Nature Systems Controsoil - Freshwater Aqua Soil Substrate for Fish, Shrimp, Live Plant Propagation and Aquascaping - 6.8pH Low Ammonia, Volcanic Ash - Black, Fine (3 Liter)

Amazing substrate! Can’t go wrong with it! The substrate when rinsing it off is very dirty and messy so keep that in mine! It will also make your tank very cloudy but it clears up within around 4 hours (if you have your filter going, in this case I have a sponge filter) or overnight without a filter. The next morning the water was crystal clear, I’ll probably update within a couple of months to see if my plants are doing any better than the gravel they were in but I have high hopes for this soil. This soil does great for bottom feeders! I have cory catfish and a betta in a 10 gallon tank and my cory’s now love to lift their behinds up to dig into the soil because it’s so soft and light weight. I’d highly recommend this for any bottom feeders that aren’t rough with the soil because the pellets CAN break and turn into little crumbles of dust or dirt. UPDATE: Still a really good substrate! I added Ludwigia Repens to my tank and they grew so fast along with the hornwort which I added a couple of weeks ago. My betta fish loves resting on it and weaving through the overgrown plants BUT the only thing is that the darkest shade that it comes in is two or three shades light so black is brown and brown is tan. I got the black/brown and it’s a dirty brown-tan color. It’s perfectly fine because I’ll be topping it off with Fluval but this is a better bang for your buck if you wanted Fluval but wanted a big bag. Update 2023: It’s still going strong and continues to help my aquatic plants thrive! I did realize that you need to wash the soil out a lot and wait a good amount of time for the black to really set in. After a few months the color changed from brown/tan to black with spots of brown throughout. It’s been a minute since I’ve bought this soil and the price has gone down drastically (by $30) so I’ll definitely be buying myself another back to touch up on the old soil.

Great product! My plant looks so healthy, seems like I gave my plant a strong boost of vitamins. And, amazingly growing so fast. Love this product and would definitely buy again.

I love it already. I have a white,15 gallon, Fluval . I bought the Black Fine 10L. The Fine Controsoil seems extremely small. I removed 5 gallons of water from the tank, plants, assassin snails and the fish. I then removed all the CaribSea black substrate that has been there for 7 years. There was a lot of dust to vacuum. So now I have a half a tank of water. Using a cup I scooped up soil and just poured it in. Yes the water was cloudy for about 10 minutes and then it was clear. I was not paying attention to the result but soon noticed there was way to much soil in the tank. I removed some of it. I would say a little more than 1/4 of the bag I did not use in the tank. I hope this helps.

Good soil

This was super easy to add to the tank. There was the initial clouding but a water change and letting the filter do it's thing and after less than 30 minutes, the tank was clear. Initial impressions are great. Of note, brown is a little darker than expected, but in a good way. If you're looking for light brown, this is definitely not light brown.

I originally topped it off with sand, which did amazing. Plants flourished for the most part (it was my first time fully planting my tank so some melt was expected and did in fact occur). But then I had to transport my tank to my college dorm, and everything was muddy for days on end. Thank god I had a spare bowl for my betta to live in, else he would’ve literally thought he was in a damn swamp. After everything settled I topped it off with more sand and now everything’s great, except for a bit of sediment that still seems to be settling on top of the sand. Easy enough to get out with a gravel cleaner, but still. Exercise caution. Also- it’s such a small bag for the price, but I guess it’s indeed that good.

I’ve used a lot of substrates and this one was by far the cleanest. Required significantly less rinsing to get clean enough to put in my newest tank. Plant growth has been good and the overall appearance just shows what a good quality substrate this stuff really is. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a good planted tank substrate.

Expensive, but then I haven't found one that isn't. No ammonia released (a huge plus). Comes in different size granules (genius!) No washing was required at all, and the slight haze during the tank fill quickly dissipated. (Pour it into the tank gently, add your water slowly). The perfect aquasoil.