manojprabakar

I recently bought a 75gal bow front aquarium. I'm planning to have a heavily planted setup with Co2 injection and good light. I'm really torn between Eco-complete and ADA Aquasoil for the substrate.

Please help me justify the price difference between these two.

ADA Aquasoil: ADA recommends 4 x 9 liter bags of Aquasoil + 3 x 2 liter bags of Power Sand for 75 gal setup. That costs around $217 shipped. That's a lot.

If I choose to buy just the 4 x 9 liter bags of Aquasoil, that'd be $150 shipped. (I'm not sure if that'd be enough for 75gal, please correct me)

Eco-Complete: I guess I have to use 5 x 20 lb bags (please correct me if I'm wrong) for 75gal. It costs less than $130 (Cheap price of $105 shipped at petsolutions.com. Can someone vouch for them?)

As you can clearly see, the price difference is a lot. Would you justify the price premium of ADA Aquasoil? Is it going to make a huge difference if I use Aquasoil over Eco-complete??

Please ENLIGHTEN me, Planted Tank GURUS

Yeaulman

You can also try www.aquariumplants.com own substrate. They come in 5 gallon buckets and 2 might do your 75g.

hoppycalif

ADA Aquasoil has been found by many people to be the best of the commercial substrates, primarily because it grows plants very well, but also because planting in it is easy, and it holds slopes better than most substrates. What that is worth is up to the buyer. At one time Aquasoil was priced about the same or lower than Eco complete, so I suspect EC's price has dropped a bit. I haven't used either of those because neither is worth the price to me, but to others it is worth even more.

davemonkey

I can vouch for that stuff. I used 1 bucket (5 gal) for my 50 gal (48x12 footprint) and it gave me about 3" depth. It has worked VERY well for growing plants. The only draw-back is that it is so light-weight. But, for the price and root development I get with it, I will continue to use this in future set-ups. They also offer different size containers of it.

-Dave

looking4roselines

Is the weight of this substrate similiar to the Schultz aqua soil?

The black substrate on your avatar is the same from aquariumplants.com?

davemonkey

Yes, and yes. In my avatar it looks a bit lighter, but it's a dark grey/black in color.

Here's a link to pics of my tank/substrate:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...l-journal.html

-Dave

helgymatt

I use eco in both of my tanks and I love it. That isn't to say I wouldn't love aquasoil too, but to me eco-complete is in my budget (at least I think it is).

cs_gardener

I use both eco complete and the Aquarium Plants substrate and I prefer EC because of the weight and the ease of planting in it. The AP substrate is still good but it's harder to keep smaller plants anchored it it. I've never used ADA products so I can't comment on them.

manojprabakar

Thank you folks for your wonderful insight.

I learned from other sources that 1x9L bag of Aquasoil is almost equivalent to 2 bags of EC. If you think of it that way, buying just 4 bags of 9L Aquasoil bags for 75gal would work out cheaper($149 shipped).
Also Tom Barr from barrreport.com recommended Aquasoil over EC for some reasons.

I wish I could try the aquariumplants.com substrate, but I can't risk it. ADA Aquasoil and EC are proven winners. That's the reason I was torn between only these two.

I'm kind of leaning towards Aquasoil at the moment. But I'll be waiting for a while for the GREEN signal from the Finance Minister(Wife ) to spend $150 on dirt. Thanks all for your valuable response.

davemonkey

HAHAHA! I know exactly how you feel!!

-Dave