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RE: flourite's best deal around?
If you want to save a little money there is a viable alternative to
Flourite. I've used a combination of Schultz Clay Soil Conditioner and
laterite with great success. You need the laterite because the Schultz
product does not contain the iron that Flourite does but it is a clay
substrate. The Schultz stuff is about 1mm in size and is a nice light
reddish-tan color. You can get a 25lb. bag at Walmart for about $4.00. One
good thing about this stuff is it rinses very easily (not quite as easily as
regular aquarium gravel but not as bad as Flourite, either). The only
drawback I've experienced is that it's not a heavy substrate and it moves
around pretty easily so you may want to mix it with gravel or put a layer of
gravel over the top. It's not so much a problem with rooted plants (crypts,
swords, etc.) but you may have trouble keeping stem plants down with just
the Schultz stuff, especially stuff that throws out roots slowly such as
bocopa. I didn't have too many problems with hygro or cabomba so if plants
grow roots quickly like those species you'd probably be okay w/o gravel.