I did wash it and soak it overnight in calmag even though it was supposedly pre buffered. And it’s too late to add more perlite as it’s in its forever home and I don’t want to re-pot but I’ll take it for future advise if I decide on using this medium again. But as far as dwc, out of all of my grows in different mediums dwc has absolutely without a shadow of a doubt been the most successful for me. Even in coco which is supposed to be hydro-like I’m not getting the absolute explosive growth I get with dwc. When I use dwc my plants dwarf any other method both in size and yield.