I'm slowly getting all the pieces together to start my 120G back up. Two days ago, I put in the aquasoil into a clean tank. (All old gravel removed, wiped down, filled/emptied to rinse it out,etc. In other words, it was very shiny. :O). When I first added water, the water turned very brown and I noticed lots of debris floating on the surface - looked liked small pieces of straw.

The directions indicated no rinsing would be required and any cloudiness would disappear after a couple of hours with proper filtering. Well.. it hasn't yet, although, I have to admit my filters are purely mechanical - no carbon or zeolite. I also thought that if I let it sit that maybe whatever was clouding the water might settle. No such luck.. I am on my 3rd ~75% water and now the water just looks cloudy. We'll have to see if it clears up. I'm guessing this will all turn out ok - I hope so cuz it was over $200 in AS. I've read other posts that this does happen sometimes.

My question is.. what's in aquasoil that makes it do this?