dwalstad

Recent Question: "I'm googling for a plant-suitable gravel for a 135-gal tank in which I want to keep altum angels and heat-tolerant, high quality plants like certain crypts and swords. The most frequently recommended gravel is eco-complete. Do you have recommendations for a gravel? I am looking at Eco Complete."

My Answer: Eco-Complete looks like nice (attractive) gravel with some humic acids included. By itself, I don't believe it will support good plant growth (you'll need CO2 injection and regular plant fertilization). Therefore, I would put a 1 inch layer of soil on tank bottom. (I use Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Mix, which doesn't have added chemical fertilizers.) You can put the Eco-Complete (or some other gravel) on the top. Be careful to not make substrate too deep; it could go anaerobic and kill plant roots.

For good growth of swordplants, you will also need good lighting (especially for a deep tank like a 135 gal), and water that is sufficiently hard (GH >3). Municiple water of Raleigh NC is not hard enough for robust plant growth.

Diana K

I like EC. It is more like a black sand, not a gravel, and this dark background looks good; the fish and plants stand out.
It is heavy, so plants stay down in it when you first plant them.
I am not sure how much CEC it has, though, so adding something to help hold the fertilizer is a good idea. I use Pro Choice Soil Master Select. (Soil around here is too high in clay to work in an aquarium.)
SMS has a high CEC, but is a very lightweight material, and does not hold the plants down well at first.

geeks_15

For my first real planted tank, I had a 29 gallon heavily planted tank with ecocomplete as the only substrate. I had medium light, injected CO2 and added occasional (maybe once a month) fertilizer (tabs, flouish). I grew anubias, java fern, crypts, and some easy stems with great success. The local water was hard and I mixed it with RO water to get soft to medium hard water. This setup ran for 4 years without a major problem or any appreciable decline in plant growth. I broke the tank down when I moved.

I'm still a big fan of eco complete and use it in most of my tanks.

dwalstad

I don't doubt that Eco-Complete works great IF you inject CO2 and add chemical fertilizers. However, it doesn't have enough organic matter to provide CO2 (via bacterial decomposition of soil organic matter) in NPTs.

For the record, NPTs don't have artificial CO2 injection. Therefore, plants in an NPT won't do well in a substrate that is pure Eco-Complete. Of course, one can put a little soil underneathe the Eco-Complete, and then its just fine for NPTs.

tames

I will give a so-so vote for eco-complete. I have this in a 20 gallon high. Certain plants do well and others don't. If you like hairgrass, it is very hard to plant in. The hairgrass - which does well for me in an NPT with a sand top - died out. I have not tried Marsilea in it, but I think it would be the same.

If you like natural tanks and use common snails (like I do), you cannot put in MTS (Malaysian Trumpet Snails) in it. They will NOT burrow down into the substrate like they are supposed to do.

It is a mixture of fine gravel and larger gravel. I found the fine gravel sank under the larger. Stem plants are hard to plant in it. For a planted tank, you can't beat 1 inch of soil and 1 inch or so of sand. Stem plants go in like butter.

For the positives, I have had the tank set up for 18 months. Great growth on thickly rooted plants like crypts. Even though Rotala is a fragile steam plant, once you do get it established it seems to do well. Vals do well, but hard to anchor in the gravel - pulls up easily. I would think Amazon swords would love it.

After having soil/sand tanks, I would never go back to EC or plain gravel. The 20 high is set up at work, and I did not want to mess with soil there.

If I were setting up a large dream tank like your 135, I would do the soil and sand (black sand is very nice). It may take a few months before everything settles, but you will be happy with it.

geeks_15

Yeah, I didn't notice that this thread was in the El Natural forum (I was checking for all new threads).

I have not tried eco complete alone in a NPT, because, by definition, a NPT has soil as part of the substrate, correct?

That said I'm still an EC fan. I've grown many different plants in it including crypts, swords, hairgrass, and many stems. These have all been in high tech tanks.

For my NPT tank (I'm still a newbie at NPT) I didn't bother with EC because regular gravel is cheaper and the nutrients come from the soil. The gravel is only there to sit atop the soil and keep the water clearer, right?

dwalstad

Yes.
Welcome to the El Natural forum!

Dustymac

I tried Eco-complete once. I used it for the substrate for a 30 gal, my last hi-tech tank. I liked it, the darkness forms a nice backdrop for colorful fish and green plants. The plants grew pretty well, too. However, about three months into it, the whole tank got swallowed by BBA. I had never seen anything like it - everything was covered with the stuff.

At the time, I had just bought Diana's book and had two 10 Gal NPTs set up and was sold on the low-tech methodology. Instead of fighting the BBA any longer, I decided to take the 30 gal down and set it back up with a soil substrate. The Eco-complete was used for the substrate topper after I sifted all the sand out of it. I noticed the sand while cleaning the EC and since the soil I was using already had some sand in it, the EC sand got tossed. I suspect this sand is one of the keys for success with EC, providing much more surface area and a more soil-like interface with plant roots.

That was about two years ago and this tank is still going strong. Many of the plants which went back into the tank were ones which came out covered in BBA. Invariably, I watched the BBA turn gray and then disappear, leaving small dots behind as evidence of it's anchorage. Amazingly, this is my only tank which never suffered any algae phase whatsoever, and remains algae-free today. Eco-complete might not be a great substrate compared to soil, but from my experience, it's a superior topper.

Hassles

There are many contradictory reports about the efficiency of Eco Complete as a plant suporting substrate. I have seen significant variences in the final product and perhaps these variences have contributed to a less than satisfactory outcome ? I set-up a 250 litre tank 18 months ago and quickly planted it out with crypts, swords. pgymy chain sword, common stem plants, some native Australian aquatic plant species and some exotic difficult to grow stuff. The substrate was placed over a substrate heating system. This tank functioned really well and I didn't do a water change for over 6 months. The plants were growing wonderfully and I never added ferts. Eventually the difficult to grow exotic stuff started to struggle and finally lost their battle. My PH neutral tap water is not overly high in carbonate hardness and my water will comfortably drop to PH 6 but in this tank the PH has stayed stable hovering around neutral. After about 12 months I started ti get a little alage, tested for phosphates (which were low) and began to conduct a typical water change regime. This tank still looks great, I appear to be winning the battle with algae (reduced lighting times with a 2 hour break in the middle) and the Discus, since added, are happy & healthy as are the numerous native shrimp. I have lost some of the native plants which I put dow to alleopathic battles with other plants. So, my experiences with Eco Complete as a stand alone plant substrate have been very positive indeed.

I did find it very difficult acquiring this substate and I was forced to acquire this from two sources. The substrate from one source was as expected, a medium grained charcoal coloured gravel while the other stuff was a larger grained multi-coloured mess replete with snail shells. The finer substarte all settled at the bottom while the multi-coloured mess now resides atop. I did attempt to haul caribsea's arse over the coals with regards to this issue and they did admit that they did release some product that was... "not within spec".

All in all I am happy to have chosen the Eco, after much research, and would happily do so again. However I think I shall 'try' some Flourite Black as opposed to the Eco, which reacts with RO water, the Flourite supposedly will not. That is, the RO water can apparently leech out minerals from the Eco substrate causing a rise in PH while this is not supposed to occur with Flourite. I hope this is correct. I wish to plant-out some of my Apistogramma tanks with a PH off less than 5 and cannot afford a rise in PH.

geeks_15

Eco complete has caused a temporary rise in pH in my planted tanks in the past. I am new to using fluorite, so I can't comment on that.