# My experience with Soilmaster Select - Charcoal



## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

I recently moved from Massachusetts to Idaho and took down my 46g bowfront. I had been using a Flourite/inert gravel mix and had grown tired of the red color. After reviewing many threads and per the advice of MatPat and Dennis, I decided to try SMS-Charcoal. The local Lesco about a mile from my house just happened to have a pallet of it in stock and wanted desperately to get rid of it. I appoligize to all of you who have been killing yourself looking for it. I bought 5 bags for myself and made the movers put it on the truck. That earned a couple of funny looks.

I used a good quantity - probably 2/3 of a bag for the 46 bow. This gives about 1-1/2" in the front and about 4" in the back. I did only a light rinse before putting it in the tank. Yes, it is incredibly dusty, but I wanted to test a theory. I then siphoned off as much water as I could from the tank (it had about an inch in it already) and proceeded to fill the tank VERY carefully to avoid any disturbance of the substrate. Voila - only slightly cloudy water that cleared up completely by morning with only an Eheim canister moving the water around.

The SMS is amazingly light compared to Flourite and Onyx so I was a little worried about it holding plants down. Yesterday the plants arrived from a very kind friend in CT who babysat them for a couple of weeks. To my surprise the SMS held down the plants quite nicely - much better than in Flourite. I planted Crypts, Cyperus, Blyxa, hairgrass, and about a dozen varieties of stem plants. This morning not one plant had come up.

So far so good. I did notice that about 1 out of every 100 granules is red colored instead of charcoal black. It makes for a bit of a speckeld appearance. It probably has something to do with how they process it. I haven't checked each bag yet. I wonder if anyone else has seen this.


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## Jimbo205 (Feb 2, 2006)

Photo please (?)


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## yoink (Aug 31, 2005)

I too have a few little red specks, but I can't notice it unless I'm right up on the tank looking in it. It seems to settle down after awhile and won't be so easily moved around by water current or big fish swimming by.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Here are a few photos, first of the red flecks.......









A little grouping with some good color:









And finally, a shot of the whole tank. Don't look at the plants too closely. They need to recover a bit from shipping. They've only been going for a couple of days or so.










I very much like the overall color. The darker substrate brings out the colors in the plants and fish better than the lighter substrates. Forgive the jumbled mess of a tank. Most of these plants will be moved to a bigger (and hopefully better) tank in a couple of months.


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## Chris S (Feb 27, 2006)

Do nutrients in the water column travel through this substrate as well as they do through flourite? (I forget the term)
This stuff sounds really good, and looks very good. I know nothing about it. Is it really charcoal?


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Supposedly this material has a high cation exchange capacity (CEC), which basically means that favorible chemical reactions can occur in the root zone of the plants.

It doesn't actually contain any charcoal. It is labeled as SoilMaster Select, Charcoal by the manufacturer to describe the color. I think it is red in its native state, but dyed in a baking process during processing. I'm guessing some of the native red stuff snuck into the bag. Supposedly the resulting product holds its color over time without bleeding. They manufacture the Soilmaster in green, red, charcoal, and other colors since its intended use is for baseball fields. All in all, I like it, and I think I'll give it a go for my big tank that should be arriving in a month or so.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

I am finding that SM does bleach a bit over time. When I stir the top layer a bit while replanting or cleaning I can see that the particles down lower are darker colored. It still looks very good, but just not quite as dark colored.


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## Jimbo205 (Feb 2, 2006)

Wow! THOSE SHOTS LOOK GREAT!!!

My tanks could only look that good in my dreams.


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