its not strange at all, see, people uses perlite for aeration, this is erratic becouse perlite generates this air spots which makes the roots to rotten, i call ir "air spots" and its very bad to the roots.
Also people use perlite to keep the moisture of the soil, this is erratic also, do the test, put watered perlite in a cup and watered vermiculite in another cup, you will see that perlite dries out very very quickly while vermiculite really keeps the moisture in.
Also these are neutral minerals which dont contribute on nutriens, so if you are using it, probably you are wasteing like 30% of your soil in that, you will save some money, but if we want to perfectionate the soil, its useless.
It is much better for aeration and keeping the soil moisture to do a mix of peats (blonde, spanghnum, river undertow) which also provides organic nutrients
when adding a lot of worm castings the acid of the peats gets neutralized. Im sorry for my attitude bro, but its really sad for me that all of you uses absolete soils from the past, unless you wanna cheapen the soil out.
my mix is:
30% worm castings
20% river undertow
20% compost
20% mix of peats
10% vermiculite
.
Plus it's cheaper and faster, I make my own soil for my garden, I use a lot of stuff I wouldn't use indoors like composted manure.
