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Sorry, I've never used Fluval Stratum personally. If it crushes that easily, it will break down in the tank overtime.

If you ever try again, we would be happy to walk you through the process with our opinions and experiences.

The tank went white/milky. The tank had 10 tetras, 3 amano shrimp, some nerite snails and an army of red cherry shrimp. They were breeding like crazy. When things went cloudy, I did start losing some cherry shrimp. I got them out and started to do water changes. But as the days went on, I lost more and more. It was quite a gut punch when I had to throw in the towel to save what I could. It has put me off keeping fish. A friend is coming to collect the tank off me in a few weeks when he's down my way. I used to live in London, kept quite a few different tanks over the years, with no tap water and no problems. Even had a few marine tanks. Switched over to RO for my 5ft reef tank. Moved out into Kent and tried a 3ft planted tank, nothing but algae problems, which put me off for a few years. Thought I'd have another go with a smaller tank and RO water to make sure everything was perfect. I was hoping the problem was the RO water I bought, but it seems like it's somethings I did. I just wish I knew where I went wrong.

So I just opened the bag of fluval stratum and the pellets Can easily be crushed by my fingers making a black powdery soil is this normal? If this is normal do the pellets eventually break down in the tank overtime?