# Adding Eco-Complete to established tank



## StereoKills (Sep 15, 2007)

I'm planning to switch my substrate in my planted 10g to eco complete in the next day or two. The tank has been cycled, but the plants aren't doing as well as I would like (hence the eco complete). I also plan this to be a shrimp tank in the near future. I've heard eco can mess things up for a few weeks. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Anything I should watch out for or be worried about?


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

The best reason I know of to switch to EC is for the appearance. If your plants aren't doing well it isn't likely to be because of the substrate. What substrate are you now using? Or, have you already made up your mind to switch?


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## StereoKills (Sep 15, 2007)

I was using Flourite (which I purchased as Laterite). I was switching because I heard that eco worked way better for plants and many people have had better results raising shrimp with it.


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## Blacksunshine (Aug 11, 2006)

If you already have a plant friendly substrate I don't see Eco helping you any more. its not way better then flourite or laterite or anything else. It's equal. as hoppy stated the biggest reason to switch from one plant substrate to another is for appearance. My self in my high light tank I'm using schultz. in another I use SMS/eco mix and in yet another I have pure eco. and in yet another another I have a schultz/laterite/petshop gravel mix. plants grow fine in all of them. really the substrate is there just to hold the plants down. their health is more dependent on the ferts and light you give them.


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## StereoKills (Sep 15, 2007)

Ah, well I do like the darker color of the eco. I'm not dosing with ferts either so I guess it doesn't really matter.


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## NoSvOrAx (Nov 11, 2006)

Its a pain in the you know what... I've done it a couple times. The bi-modal aspect means your tank is gonna get real cloudy. By removing the old substrate your gonna get an ammonia spike. Even if you empty the tank and clean it the system will be whacked out.

That said, the eco is pretty sexy and if it makes you happier to look at it then go for it. The eco is alittle lighter than the pictures.

I'm not sure what kind of shrimp you have, but I find my cherries like the onyx sand/gravel better than the eco. It slightly buffers the water and holds the water about .5 in ph above my tap.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

If you have more than about 20 watts of CF light with good reflectors you will need to be dosing fertilizers to get good growth. If you use lower light, and fertilize the substrate you can get good, but slow growth of the plants without dosing the water. Eco Complete comes with fertilizers already in it, so for a few months it will support the plants growth without added fertilizing, but eventually that will be used up and you will need either root fertilizing or water fertilizing to maintain the growth rate.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

I've only accomplished green water on two occasions. Both involved trying to switch out substrate in an existing tank. I'd recommend a complete tear-down with the fish out of the tank for a few days if you really want to do this. If you have a sufficient quantity of plants then a "cycle" is meaningless. They'll soak up any ammonia and nitrogenous wastes as quickly as they're produced.


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## StereoKills (Sep 15, 2007)

So the Flourite I have in there will be just fine if I don't really want to change it? Might have to start dosing though?


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## Blacksunshine (Aug 11, 2006)

StereoKills said:


> So the Flourite I have in there will be just fine if I don't really want to change it? Might have to start dosing though?


I think that changing your fertilization routine would be much more effective then changing your substrate.


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## StereoKills (Sep 15, 2007)

Yeah, I'm starting to think so. I wasn't going with ferts cause this was gonna be a shrimp tank. From what I've been reading today though, if I don't overdose ferts, no problem with the shrimp.


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## if_wishes_were_fishes (Aug 6, 2007)

I added Eco to my established 55 gallon, right on top of the nasty white gravel (dunno why I got white, so stupid!). Anyhow, it went great and the cloudiness cleared up within an hour or so. Easy as pie.


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## gotcheaprice (Sep 4, 2007)

Just topping it off like that won't be very happy for you in the future when you decide to remove the substrate... It'll just mix won't it?


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## if_wishes_were_fishes (Aug 6, 2007)

Sure, it'll mix, but I'm not too worried about it right now  Plus, I can siphon off the Eco since it's smaller and lighter than the gravel, done that 2x already when I put some Eco into a smaller tank.


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## StereoKills (Sep 15, 2007)

Well, I made the switch over to eco when I moved my tanks from our old apt to our new one. I must say, it does look sexy indeed! Very happy I switched it. Added a large rock I found and completely redid my scape. Very happy with the results and my cherries should be here on thursday!


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## Mr. Fish (Oct 24, 2007)

I just did the samething If fishes were fishes did.
I had that plain white gravel, but now as I started gettin fully into the planted tank
hobby I decided well, I have 2.5 WPG, DIY Co2, Dry Ferts, might as well just get the final stage
which was the Eco Complete. IMO from what Ive read, theres more to it then just looks. It
contains traces of minerals and nutrients that most Ferts dont contain which give it that healthy
green apperal. It also helped anchor my plants better, so we'll see how it does with the plants.... My plants grow like crazy...


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## StereoKills (Sep 15, 2007)

It does have some "good stuff" in the liquid that comes with it, plus it has the ability to store any ferts you add to the tank and kinda time release them. Since adding the eco, my tank has grown like crazy and several plants had to be moved out. They were just too big, one water sprite actually stretched from one end of the tank to the other! Cherries are doing great too and had many many babies just last week. Went from 20 to ~80 in a month and a half!


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