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Re: flourite's best deal around



Chuck MacNaughton recently wrote:
"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."

Are you sure about that Chuck? As far as I can tell, Shultz Clay Soil
Conditioner is merely repackaged Profile. Shultz is a marketing company, not
the manufacturer. The archives of the APD have many posts regarding the
various "versions" of this stuff and also who actually makes it.

Last year, Jamie Johnson ran some very sophisticated tests on a large number
of substrate materials. It was published in Dave Gomberg's Planted Aquaria
Magazine. I had received a copy of the information from Jamie at the time
because I had supplied him with a number of samples for analysis. Here are
the "Iron" findings from that analysis:

Profile        13,200 mg/kg
Turface      10,700 mg/kg
Flourite       9,610 mg/kg
Duplarit G  80,100 mg/kg

Turface is another sintered clay product manufactured by the same company
that makes Profile. It is obviously made from a slightly different clay base
than that used to make Profile. The test results only record the total
amount of any particular metal in the sample - it might be wrong to assume
that all of that metal is bioavailable. It is highly likely that some other
process might be necessary to convert the iron present into a form that
plants can absorb (plant roots and substrate bacteria can do this
conversion, given time and opportunity).

Many list members have had very good results with Flourite, both with and
without the added extra Iron in Flourish Iron (a companion product made by
Seachem). So, if the 9,610 mg/kg of Iron in Flourite is good enough on its
own, why would the 13,200 mg/kg of Iron in Profile (Shultz Clay Soil
Conditioner) need to be supplemented? Both Profile and Turface have higher
Iron concentrations than Flourite does, not less.

How much is enough? How much is too little? How much is too much? More
questions than answers.

I don't think that anyone would be making a mistake by using laterite with
Profile but I don't think that it is necessary for the reason you give.

James Purchase
Toronto