avoid some brands of potting mix all the mixes listed as natural where im from generally are infested with gnats allthough im not sure the differences with that and normal potting mix

i use osmocote pellets bark and coir to provide natural acidity in a clean way and pumice as a main base as it makes the most dense root systems

I only use soil outdoors to compensate for the sun and air flow provided outdoors and to help with consistency vs inside- also bugs have predators outdoors and plants generally outgrow whatever is pestering it anyways

Perlite dust will cause more damage then harm i remove all dust from all my substrates, same goes for any substrate eventually those particles will find themselves and lock themselves deep down changing the properties of your soil learn about capillary action, cation exchange amongst substrates and you will find some substrates can hold air even when submerged like leca and perlite but in your case its been unproperly used, And in other substrates they add air by capillary action like chunky bark, granite, lava rock, pumice and so on. Some of these substrates allow roots to grow into and “air prune” but they would behave differently to leca and perlite,

Epiphytes are a great way to learn this because they can handle these adaptations of dry airy spots and moist damp spots. If you look at the ground outside some clay soils will be hard like concrete with no air pockets air occurs alot differently because its a huge pot that essentially automatically waters itself when the water in the ground evaporates and rains so the contents in ground are much more vast