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Very interesting fellas...thanks!

I ran out of Aquatic Plant Soil so I just hopped on the Napa #8822 train. Went into a local Napa Auto Parts store and here's about how it went..

napa guy: Can I hep you?
me: yes, I'm looking for Napa Floor-Dry Part #8822
napa guy: (blank stare)
me: Its called Napa Floor-Dry and the part number is 8822
napa guy: oh you want a bag of oil-dry, we have some in the back
me: if its #8822
napa guy: (blank stare)
me: show me a bag and I'll know if its the one.
napa guy: (comes out with a bag of "Oil-Dri")
me: hmmm, I don't know this product... I'm not sure if I can use it
napa guy: what are you looking to use this for?
me: soil amendment for plants
napa guy: (blank stare)
me: can you order floor-dry part #8822?

He went on the computer and found they had 100+ bags at the wharehouse and could have it the next morning. Can't wait to try some

Anyone know what the "Oil-Dri" is? It was not a Napa product. I could slightly see through the bag and the particles were quite a bit larger than the Aquatic Plant Soil I'm use to, probably around 1/4 inch in size. Looked real interesting but I didn't know if it turns to mush when wet or what.

This link below seems to be about the very same Oil-Dri except the bag I saw was different with bright red highlight not blue.

http://www.bonsaitreeforums.com/forums/ ... sting.html

The #8822 specifically says 100% diatomacous earth in small print on the back of the bag in a bottom corner.

From that link, seems the Oil-Dri is good to use. Also, from those pics, the NAPA 8822 comes in smaller granules.

Odd that he didn't know it. Also odd that they had something different.

The guys here knew the part number exactly. They keep it near the back because the shops order a lot of it and that way they don't have to carry it as far.

From that link I posted he says he got "oil-dri" from Walmart for $4. Shoot for that price I'll have to stop by old Wally and give it a try.

Also I was in a local ACE Hardware and they had Schultz "Soil Conditioner" in small 5 pound bags for $4.50. Ouch! too expensive but it looked to be the exact same as Aquatic Plant Soil.

Just picked up a 25 pound bag of Oil-Dri Premium Absorbent for $3.50 at Walmart. Will open it up tomorrow and get some pics.

Dang thats cheap...about half the price of the NAPA for the same size bag.

I can't find information on it's contents, I wonder if the local wal-mart sells it. I'd like to hear review of it used over time though before I commit to mixing it in. From what I can find it's basically a clay mixture, can someone who has purchased confirm this?

Dont know about this item, but purchased floor dry/oil dry products from Advanced auto parts and was pure unfired clay. After it being wet for 1 minute I made a clay puppet. So do take caution and properly water test it prior to use!

I'll be testing it for sure, in fact I'll start a whole new thread about the testing.

Andy_CT wrote:I'll be testing it for sure, in fact I'll start a whole new thread about the testing.

Great! Thanks Andy!

dustin0352 wrote:Dont know about this item, but purchased floor dry/oil dry products from Advanced auto parts and was pure unfired clay. After it being wet for 1 minute I made a clay puppet. So do take caution and properly water test it prior to use!

What? No pics of the puppet?

I haven't made it all the way to the NAPA store, but I checked several other auto part stores around. They have several different brands of stuff, but none of them said "100% diatomacous earth" on them, so I didn't get them. Don't remember what they were made of, but it was nothing that I recognized.

Moonbeam wrote:I haven't made it all the way to the NAPA store, but I checked several other auto led lights part stores around. They have several different brands of stuff, but none of them said "100% diatomacous earth" on them, so I didn't get them. Don't remember what they were made of, but it was nothing that I recognized.

It's same here... I have already checked auto part stores... It's nothing that I recognized for my business.. I'm so happy..

Wow, nice to see this thread is still going! Although I'm coming late to the party here, I recently jumped on the mineral mix bandwagon as I now use pumice and decomposed granite for almost all my cacti. (In the interest of full disclosure, I do have a small collection.) I've got a good source of DG about a half hour away from where I live, and while I can't say for sure, I believe DG may be rather commonly available in the southwest US. Pumice doesn't seem to be a problem finding either, at least in the areas where you can also find DG.

I personally haven't tried anything besides DG and pumice, but seems that people are going in the right direction with other mineral products like Turface, NAPA 8822, etc. There are only three caveats I would recommend for anyone experimenting with their own custom cactus mixes:

1. If you want to blend a commercial cactus mix with mineral products, the ratio should tilt heavily in favor of the mineral side. Potting soil by itself will set up and harden to the point that the roots will never get in there. May be fine for garden-variety houseplants that need more or less constant moisture, but counterproductive for healthy cacti. I can tell what happens from personal experience, when I found a bunch of cacti without roots after using a cactus mix from a local c&s nursery. A healthy dose of pumice would've solved the problem.

2. A number of people swear by peat, but for the life of me I can't understand why. Peat takes forever to wet, but once it does, it takes forever to dry out. If all you're looking for is something to hold your cactus mix together and retain sufficient moisture, I believe coir should be preferable -- and certainly better than a commercial potting soil. Once again, in the interest of full disclosure I haven't tried coir myself. However, sounds logical given the fact that it seems to avoid the evils one would find out of the usual organic crap in commercial mixes.

3. I'll take a cue from experienced c&s growers (Ian, and Darryl at CoronaCactus nursery to name two) who state that a cactus mix should have two or at most three ingredients. Trying to get fancy with a lot of different ingredients will end up working against you in reaching the goal of a mix that will drain freely while retaining moisture long enough for the needs of your cacti. The challenge is to strike a proper balance between moisture retention and drying out. An "over-engineered" cactus mix simply isn't going to work.

By the way, talk about interesting uses for cacti...

For my DG, I went to La Canada Rustic Stone in Pasadena. I told the people there I was using it for a cactus mix, and I asked them if anyone else has been looking for the same thing. They said "huh?", followed by "whatever". Guess we can be a pretty strange bunch, but that suits me just fine!