Eco Complete?

[brunettebaby4571]

Ok so I was thinking about getting some eco complete or something similar to it and was wondering if anyone had any experience with the stuff and if it worked? I have sand right now and was wondering if I could put the stuff under the sand? Thank you!

 

[Xand3r]

I have used Eco complete by itself and it gave me pretty good results, all of my plants developed a good root system. I just did what you want to do cover the ecoComplete with sand, so it's too soon to tell. However, I came up to the conclusion that if dirt works EcoComplete should also work. But I guess that it is going to be trial and error.

 

[mfdrookie516]

IMO, sand is just as good of a substrate as eco-complete, floramax, etc... until you get in to high tech, high light tanks... and even then, those substates do very little. Flourite, OTOH, does provide some benefits over sand, but it clouds up the tank and the least disturbance causes the tank to be cloudy for a few hours IME. I chose to use floramax because of the color, not because of the benefit. Another option that provides a lot of benefit, would be aquasoil and powersand. But, they're quite expensive, and should only be used on new setups, not existing (because they leach ammonia).

 

[Xand3r]

I thought that porous substrates like Eco, floramax, etc were better substrates than sand because of their ability to hold nutrients. But that's why I'm here, to learn

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Ok thank you! I recently put in some stuff for my plants and now Im getting algae everywhere?! Now what?!

 

[mfdrookie516]

what kind of 'stuff'?

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Nutrafin plant gro? I picked it up at petco they didnt have much of anything that I could find for plants and I noticed a few of my plants leaves had a little brown/yellow on the edges so I didnt know which route to go to deal with it because I know nothing about plants lol but Ive used it 2 times and now I lost two snails, have algae on a few of the plants and the rocks in the tank and my fish are acting like they have ich again?? :/ They are rubbing on stuff and flashing around. I havent seen any spots on them could t be something else? And what direction do I go to treat for ich (if it is what they have) in a planted tank? Can plants handle the salt or no?

 

[Xand3r]

It will help more if you give us a detailed description of your tank like for example the type of lights (T5, T8, Leds, etc) you are using, and for how long (ex 8, 9, 10 hrs/day) how long has the tank been stablished (most new tanks experience diatoms) the kind of plants you have, etc.
Plants do not like salt, if your fish really have ich the best way to treat is increasing the temperature and perform some PWCs.

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Well at this moment I dont know even what type of light it is other than its crappy but my plants have all grown really really well but Im getting ready to go to petco in the next day or so and buy a new light and a new hood I found one that I really liked and the tanks are on sale so Im thinking i might jsut buy a whole new tank haha but the lights are on anywhere from 10-12 hours a day and the tank has been set up for probably 7 or 8 months. And I have been watchin the fish and I havent seen any white spots or anything and they are only scratching on stuff very seldom so Im just going to keep doin water changes and see how it goes and go from there on that aspect. But what about the nutrafin? Should I stop using it? Like I said I didnt start getting algae til I started using it and a few days after I used it both my snails died. So I havent used it since but when I was using it for the short period my plants started growing like mad! Ughh Im lost haha also about the lights I found two that I was thinking they were both high output t5s one was specifically for plants and the other was a super daylight something of the sort one...would these be good? Thank you so much! Sorry this was super long I get really carried away and still just have so many questions! Thank you again for taking the time to help!