# Charcoal Soilmaster Select



## C_perugiae (Feb 26, 2004)

Hey guys, noticed that everyone's been having a horrible time trying to get the Soilmaster... just wanted to say that I have six bags in my basement.   
HA HA!

I'm kidding, really. I understand how annoying it is to think that you could have the perfect product IF ONLY they'd just send it to ya. That's how I felt last week. After about four weeks of waiting, though, my guy at Lesco found some for me! I have two bags of it in my 180 as of tonight. I should get a thank-you card in the mail for the poor chap.

Few questions for everyone...
*Can anyone tell me how much it settles once it gets wet? I'm filling the tank with a 25 gpd RO unit, so it'll take me a while to find out, but I'm trying to figure out if I need to throw in another bag in the meantime.
*I have some cool pet store connections and they might get a pallet to sell to folks in small amounts; does anyone think that it'd be worthwhile for the online community to get it from the store, since it's so hard to get in anything less than a pallet elsewhere?


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Personally, I would recommend that you use more substrate than you think you want initally. I am not sure how much it settles but I really like at least 3" overall and 4" in the back is even better. The stuff is not real heavy so the extra depth is nce for stemplants and large rooting plants.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

I haven't seen any noticeable settling in the 5 months I have been using it. And, it still seems about as light as when I first washed it. But, I haven't had problems planting anything in it.


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## oceanaqua (Oct 24, 2005)

Im tired of finding charcoal =( I just went ahead and use Red. Its a great substrate, its light at first( still alot of air in the porous clay ) but its get dense after a while. Love it.


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## slickwillislim (Oct 11, 2005)

Would boiling the soil master select make it heavier faster. I just thought of this because when I boiled some volcanic rocks that where actually really heavy they spit out tons of bubbles.

edit: not the red kind, I found this stuff in the desert sort of area between me and mammoth mountain. Its really dark and one of them started turning alittle red so I think they have a lot of iron or something.


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## C_perugiae (Feb 26, 2004)

Dennis, there's about 4-5" in there right now, so I think I'm pretty good. Used a LOT less than I thought I was going to have to use, but I have about a half inch of other gravel in there, as well. I know, seems like 100 pounds shouldn't cover much at all...


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