# Eco-Complete Acidic



## Aquaboi (Jan 5, 2007)

Hello Everyone,
I am new to this forum and to planted tanks themselves. My question is with eco-complete. I live in Oregon and my LFS said that with Portland water it is already really soft and that if I use eco-complete my water will be very acidic for quite some time after I begin using it. They said in places like New York where the water is harder, that the eco-complete works great cause it balances out, but here it wouldn't work that well. What are your thoughts??


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## yoink (Aug 31, 2005)

The guy at your fish store is an idiot. Eco complete will slightly(maybe more in soft water) raise your kh and gh making your water harder. This will last a few months and go away eventually with time and water changes. I think new york has pretty soft water too.


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## dhavoc (Mar 17, 2006)

agree, eco does zilch to soften water, the idiot must be mistaking ada aquasoil for eco.


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## shewey (Jun 19, 2006)

That doesn't sound right to me aquaboi. I wouldn't listen to him.


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## Aquaboi (Jan 5, 2007)

So they tested my water and the PH was very low at like 6.0 !! I am going to have mostly tetras in my tank so I need the PH to be around 7-7.2 . So they recommended cichlid riftlake salt , they said try just putting a few tablespoons in and test my PH again in 24-48 hours.


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

Aquaboi said:


> So they tested my water and the PH was very low at like 6.0 !! I am going to have mostly tetras in my tank so I need the PH to be around 7-7.2 . So they recommended cichlid riftlake salt , they said try just putting a few tablespoons in and test my PH again in 24-48 hours.


Why do you need pH 7-7.2 for tetras? Most come from the amazon system where the pH can be as low as 4 in rare occurences! Either way most come from water that is soft and acidic. I wouldn't add the rift salts. My tetras (cardinals, diamond, congo, glowlights), pencilfish and other fish are all in water pH 6-6.5 and love it.


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## Aquaboi (Jan 5, 2007)

Well I am doing a very heavily planted 90g tank. I was told that the PH levels should be nuetral at 7.0- 7.2?


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a neutral to slightly alkaline pH would be a disaster! In fact it might well be better and more stable, I'm just saying your tetras don't need a neutral pH, they prefer acidic conditions.

Best thing is to look at your KH levels. Mine are very low, but the fish seem to like it. I think, if I remember correctly, that most experts advise a KH of 2, at least, especially when adding CO2.

Were your pH readings before adding CO2? 30ppm CO2 should drop pH by a degree.
Check your KH and see.

Be careful of cichlid 'salts'. Some do actually contain NaCl, which your tetras (or even the rift cichlids it is marketed for in fact) don't like.


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## Satirica (Feb 13, 2005)

You need to find another LFS. So far everything they told you was somewhere out in the ozone. With very soft water you can grow some plants that are difficult to impossible to grow in harder water such as eriocaulons and toninas. You can grow almost any South American plant, and those conditions are perfect for Amazon River Basin fish including numerous tetras, apistogrammas and corydoras. 

I strongly suggest you avoid Cichlid Lake Salt. It has significant amounts of NaCl and is completely unnecessary.


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## K20A2 (Aug 12, 2006)

Dont stress yourself out trying to change the water. Right from the tap you have H2O that most spend $$ on RO systems to get. The fish at the LFS are being kept in the same type of water so bringing them home to different water could be harmful to them.


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