Legigo 2 LBS Organic Expanded Clay Pebbles, 4mm -16mm Light Expanded Clay Aggregate, Natural Clay Pebbles for Hydroponic & Aquaponics Growing, Orchid Potting Mix, Dutch Buckets, Drainage, Terrarium

Item is perfect for creating a drainage barrier for potted plants to prevent root rot. The pebbles are a good size to allow air flow and reduce the risk of the soil becoming too compacted over time.

They work the way they're supposed to. The plants grew in them and they blocked light out so the water wouldn't get algae in it. Happy with purchase.

Great quality and size for price. My go to!

10/10 would use again. just wish the size was more consistent

I’ve used a few brands of LECA and my plants seem to love this one! The LECA balls are a dark brown and are varied, so you can use this brand for small or large plants. LECA is good versatile medium to grow plants in. I use them semi-hydroponically or in my chunky soil mixture.If you’re new to semi-hydroponics, there’s a slight learning curve. Here are a few things to keep in mind before you use it:1. LECA can help your plants thrive!!! Like I said before, there can be a trial and error period before you’re completely comfortable with LECA. So, if your plants fail, many times it is due to this and not the LECA.2. Before using, rinse the LECA until the water runs clear, then soak it for 24-48 hours. You can also boil it for 10-30 minutes if you’d like but it’s not necessary.3. There are a few ways to use planters with LECA: a planter with no drainage or a nursery pot or net pot inside of planter with no drainage. I usually use a clear nursery pot inside of a container, that way you can easily see the root system.4. When transitioning your plant from soil to LECA be VERY CAREFUL! Wash the roots of your plant and make sure all of the dirt is off of it. If you don’t do that, you can develop root rot (you’ll know if you have root rot because it smells baddd).5. Root Rot (black, mushy, smelly roots) sucks, but it can be avoided. Again, this usually occurs because of lack of knowledge about LECA rather than the product you purchased. When you transfer your plant to LECA, it has soil roots and needs to grow water roots. Make sure the soil roots aren’t submerged in the water. You’ll also need to frequently flush the dying roots when first transplanting to ensure they’re not just sitting there.6. This brings me to water and potting. I like to fill about a third of my nursery pot with LECA. Then I’ll hold the plant in place in the pot and fill the rest of the pot up with LECA. When watering, make sure the water level only goes up to the bottom third of the pot and stops right below the root ball. You’ll have to periodically check the water levels so that you can replenish it.7. LECA is not soil which means it doesn’t have a nutrients. This means you have to be on top of fertilizer because water alone won’t cut it. Feed your plants (aka the water reservoir) with a hydroponic nutrient solution or liquid fertilizer.Remember, have fun! LECA is great; it gives your roots oxygen, plants thrive, it’s harder to get bugs like fungus gnats, and it’s fun! Don’t be scared of algae, it happens naturally and you can prevent it with opaque planters. Practice on clippings first if you aren’t sure of what to do until you’re more confident about putting an entire plant in LECA.

I didn't purchse this for aqua-culture, and I don't have any orchids.I was mainly thinking of drainage for ordinary house plants. The size of first product I purchased was on the large size. I ordered this bag because the individual balls were much smaller. They worked out much better for drainage in the bottom of a pot.I also tried mixing them into soil with pearlite that I intended to use with water sensitive plants. That seemed to work out okay.It was a good price for what I received and I'm happy with the product. Will reorder again when I run out.Additional thoughts December 5, 2023:I already gave this a 5 star rating so I can't improve upon that. However, I can offer my personal experience with using this as a soil enhancement. I began earlier this year adding the clay pebbles to soil I was mixing for replanting house plants.I have some Christmas Cacti that I'm fond of, especially the ones my grandmother gave me 60 years ago. Christmas Cacti are fussy about watering: too much-they die; too little-they die. So I've always made a good layer of stone and then charcoal in the bottom of a pot when repotting. Then I wouldn't repot them for years and years as long as the drainage remained good.There is a point of diminishing returns with this level as the rather fibrous roots tend to mass around the drainage holes anyway requiring a manual trim of the root mass through the multiple pot holes in the bottom of the pot.This year I decided to bite the bullet and repot both the large plants and the smaller potted ones. I decided to add additional soil amendments to the potting soil I had. I added charcoal, perlite, and the clay pellets to the Miracle-Gro potting soil. My amendment mixture probably made up half of the total amount of soil mixture that resulted. I repotted early summer.All of the Christmas Cacti seemed to react really positively to the new soil despite the heavy root prunning I did before replanting. Most have almost doubled in size and created many more new branching stems. Best of all has been the blossoming.The Thanksgiving variety set up blossoms early and were in bloom by the end of November and have continued to produce additional buds.The Christmas variety hasn't set up blossoms yet. I'm ashamed I put off the biggest pot until September as I knew it was going to be a chore. But it has done an amazing job of pushing out new growth despite the repotting being so late in the year.An extra bonus has been the repotted cuttings liking the new soil mixture. Normally, I don't get any blooms until the next year on cuttings. My 1 1/2 year old cuttings doubled in size the same as the older plants. It is covered in blooms more that I can ever remember. Further more, the cuttings I made earlier in the summer have not only pushed out new growth but some of them have actually set up blossoms.I can't claim that this was a magical mixture. It is just highly unusul plant behavior observed in over 60 years of growing Christmas Cacti.I contribute the change in growing patterns to all three soil amendments increasing the drainage in the soil and at the same time increasing the available usuable water without leaving the root system soaking in damp soggy soil.I would highly recommend using all three soil amendments for any plant you have that is fussy about getting its roots wet and staying wet.

Great value for my money! Perfect cor drainage and aquaculture plants.

Rinse! Rinse! That’s it!