Exo Terra Plantation Soil, 8 Qt (8.8 L) - 100% Natural Terrarium Substrate | Increases Humidity, Stimulates Digging & Burrowing | Ideal for Natural Terrarium Setups & Live Plants

So I read a lot of the reviews, and I just want to say. Yes it took a while to absorb the water...but if you use hot water and the amount it says to (3liters) and actually wait the 30+ minutes...it does expand and it's pretty decent quality. Holds humidity EXTREMELY well. So if you re using it for something that requires good humidity this is your go to for sure.

This is good soil and there is a lot of it per brick. It really expands. It's good to store, compact and dry. Overall useful.Though, it is pretty difficult to break up. I spent over an hour breaking it up, so I imagine you could get around that by soaking it for several hours before messing with it. Still, the brick is pretty dense. It worked for my purposes but it takes some work to prepare.

Has kept my isopods alive and happy for the past two months :)

I purchased similar type substrates in blocks like this many times in the past. I normally use Zoo Med Eco Earth but didn't think anything of trying this brand instead. I wish now that I hadn't. It was a waste of my money, and how am I supposed to return it when I already tried soaking the brick in water? I let the whole brick sit in a bucket of water for over 24 hours. It got a bit saturated but did not expand. So I used my hands and a pair of scissors to break apart the brick, thinking that maybe if it was in smaller pieces it'd absorb water better. Nope. See included photos. Those are the chunks I broke it into myself, they're just sitting in a bucket of water doing nothing for over another 24 hours now. How am I supposed to use this as a substrate? Now I'm out my money (luckily not a lot but still) and I still have to buy something else to use in my tanks.

This stuff is an excellent exfoliated, if you value your manicure I’d wear gloves. Be sure to allow time to soak in water to unbrickify and then dry, depending on your needs

I bought this for a snail terrarium and watched lots of videos on online of people using this product and I think overall my experience was a lot different. All the videos I watched people just put it in water and it started to expand...and that’s exactly what the instructions say to do, just put the block in water and in 30 minutes it will expand. But my block did not expand within 30 minutes so I started to poke at it and then an hour passed and nothing. So I literally had to shred the block with scissors and continuously pour water directly onto it and here I am 2 hours in with just about 1/3 of the block turned into usable soil. The soil is just fine but the instructions made it seem so simple... so just something to note, plan for more than 30 minutes

Works for what I need except it’s not “very resistant to mold”. See picture..

High quality!