Eco-Complete Info for those who wanted to know more about it
I recently sent this email to CaribSea. The reply is below. Very interesting!
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I have a few questions:
1) I have noticed that some bags of eco complete on store shelves look slightly more "milky" than others. Does this mean it is old and that the live water has gone bad?
2) Some people I was talking with online insist that it should not make you water cloudy, but my bag made the water quite cloudy. A very fine light brown dust eventually settled out on top. I am attempting to gently mix it up again so the fine dust settles under the larger grains so I can get a black look. Is this amount of light dust normal?
3) What on earth is eco complete? Is it a manufactured substrate, or just a mixture of natural rocks gathered from different sources, ground down and mixed together?
Thanks!
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Hi there. Thank you for your inquiries about our Eco-Complete. Yes, there may be some dust, that is normal. Your outside filter should clear that up pretty quickly. As lots vary, you may see some bags look a bit murky and some don't. It really does not have anything to do with anything critical like the bacteria. However, you do want to make sure that you are not seeing a lot of white rocks in the material. We had a batch go through with a calcium carbonate contaminant (causes increase in pH) a long time ago, but I'm not hearing much about it recently as most everything hass been recalled and replaced. Obviously if you suspect a problem we will replace it, but what you have so far sounds normal.
What is Eco-Complete? It is actually very cool stuff. If you look closely you will notice that most of the grains are round and porous. It is volcanic material, but not just the rock ground down, but the spray that comes out during the eruption. This is why is is mostly round, we don't grind or crush it down. It is therefore, very root and fish friendly becuase it does not have the sharp edges like gravel. We also mix in a bit of finer material to give it two distinct grades for optimium oxygenation to the roots. Eco Complete also contains live bacteria for not only a faster cycle time in the traditional sense, but it also converts fish waste to usuable plant nutrients faster, so the plants don't see the lag time you find with regular substrate set ups. Plsu, the material is geologically recent, so more trace elements like iron are available sooner and longer. There is a reason laterite is red, the iron is so locked up in the mineral that it harldy delivers iron at all. However, when you grind up the rock, it reads high in iron, but it simply can't get out. Eco-Complete is much more soluble for not only iron but other good stuff like potassium, calcium, and more
Anyway, to make a long story short, its good stuff. A well thought out "Complete" substrate that does a lot more than look pretty. I'm sure you'll like it.
Sincerely,
Betsey Moore
CaribSea
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