Re: Vermiculite

["James Purchase" <jppurchase at rogers_com>]

Madran asked about vermiculite.

Rock popcorn. Put it in the soil of your houseplants but keep it away from
your aquarium. The stuff is messy, it floats. In order to fully saturate it
you've got to literally break it apart (easy to do) and it forms a flour
fine dust which becomes a slurry/mud when wet. In a tank its like everything
has been covered by "pixie dust" as the superfine particles settle over the
gravel, plants, everything else. And you can't keep it out of the water
column by putting it under the substrate - eventually it will surface. I
don't even want to think of what it does to the gills of the fish. As you
can tell, I used it (once). Never again......

James Purchase
Toronto