I've read a ton of stuff about this. When you look closely at the comments of the people that like it, you'll see that their results are about the same as with live sand. Considering the price difference and the extra pain in the butt factor, I think I'd stick with the live sand. I've also seen where labs have analyzed some of these products an have found that the claims of ingredients was very inaccurate casting serious doubt on it's true origin.