Akadama is a non baked clay like mineral vulcanic soil and if it is stated to be baked, as some bags say it probably is very short periode more for sterilization. Or it might point to it's vulcanic origine baked by nature while it was formed, for commercial purpose. (Like they sell sea salt mined in switserland? a land without a sea).. But the hardnes Akadama comes in, is from a different layer, deeper mined is more compact harder Akadama than the shallow mined layers. Realy baked clay would be more like Seramis that is a 1200°C baked clay pellet.
Anyway even the hard Akadama is still relatively soft and gets bit softer when soaked.. But if not disturbed to much it holds its structure very well.. I have it in the tank for over 2 years now and it still is a relative solid grain. It only falls apart if i rub it between my fingers. Or if i stick a finger deep into the soil i feel the deeper akadama compact into a sucking clay like mush under my fingers pressure. So rinsing akadama is actualy useless, because your disturbing it to much and it will keep dusting, than you put it in the tank and disturb it again even more with scaping and planting it and it'll powder again..
If you do not want the dust from the bag in the tank, than put a portion in a strainer, shake it gently to get most of the dust out and put it dry into the tank. Once you have your desired layer in there, scape it gently. Use a brush and do not use to much force to push the rocks or wood into it. After you are done with that use a spray bottle to soak it. The dust that came of during the scaping part, will settle deeper down while it slowly drains with spraying. Let it settle for a night give the akadama some time to saturate and soak in all the water to it's core.. Plant it and spray it again and gently fill the tank. I my opinion Akadama is perfect aquarium soil, deeper rooting plants like crypts and sword love it.. In my tanks the same age crypts grow beter, larger in shorter periode in the softer akadama than it does in the harder lava based substrate.
