# eco-complete or ADA aquasoil?



## raggamuffin

hi guys, 
so what do you reckon? which is the better substrate? Caribsea Eco-Complete or ADA Aquasoil Amazonia? I dont plan to layer or mix these substrates with anything other than a bit of peat.


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## Jdinh04

ADA Aquasoil, is the best i've seen thus far, but I guess it crushes very easy as I had a few pebbles that came along with plants in the mail. I don't want to risk having the substrate like crush on me when i'm either moving it around or planting plants ... i've had eco complete and liked it as well.


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## banderbe

if you're just starting out in the hobby I would get eco-complete. It's what I use and has given me good results.

Then if you later on decide that you are in the hobby long-term you could justify the expense of ADA aquasoil. I expect my next tank will be ADA aquasoil, and I plan on doing a 75 gallon which will probabaly cost an arm and leg in substrate if I go with ADA


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## raggamuffin

yeah those were my sentiments but although the ada is more expensive than the eco, its not by much. the thing that makes me hesitant about ada is that the aquasoil is just the begining as in there are so many other products from ada that it makes me wonder whether aquasoil by itself will do a good job or do i have to mix it with powersand etc. eco, however, is apparently fantastic straight out of the bag, which is a concept i like! i am leaning towards eco i think...


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## banderbe

Typically people use aquasoil in conjunction with powersand.. I think they use powersand as the bottom layer and sometimes over a thin dusting of peat.. but not really sure on the details.


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## turtlehead

If you are just starting I'd recommend ECO, which is what I started it out with. It grows everything fine. With ADA which is now what I have been using for two years is great, but it also leave a lot of room for water column ferts and is better suited for high light high maintainence. ADA promotes the best growth though. Maybe I'm just a little biased because I have used ECO for half a year and ADA for two years.


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## raggamuffin

did you guys find their was a hardness and therefor a pH shift when using the eco? one fellow mentioned his 1-2dkh tap water became 5-6dkh when using eco, which resulted in a pH of like 8.4. i'm planning on SA tetras etc, so i dont reckon they'd appreciate a pH that high! is this a common experience for you eco complete guys?


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## turtlehead

ECO raised kh and ADA lowered ph


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## sherry

has anybody mixed the two? I just bought a bag of aquasoil to use in areas wher I have my toughest to grow plants to give them a boost.. 

btw, tom barr says he never uses power sand with his ada subs.


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## turtlehead

ADA is designed to work with its own line. Similar to Seachem, which is better off with it's own line.


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## banderbe

eco-complete didn't mess with my KH at all.


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## Aqua Man

The rasie in KH in Eco is only tempoary if it does raise's the KH,It will come back down


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## Troy McClure

turtlehead said:


> If you are just starting I'd recommend ECO, which is what I started it out with. It grows everything fine. With ADA which is now what I have been using for two years is great, but it also leave a lot of room for water column ferts and is better suited for high light high maintainence. ADA promotes the best growth though. Maybe I'm just a little biased because I have used ECO for half a year and ADA for two years.


Could you expand on why ADA is best suited for high light high maintenance and what you mean by ADA leaving a lot of room for column ferts? The 50gal Oceanic I'm getting in a couple weeks will have a 24" Coralife Aqualight HQI over it with the halide running for only 4-6 hours out of the entire 12 hour cycle. I'm interested in why AQ would be better in a high light situation such as this as compared to EC.

It's AQ vs. EC vs. SMS. Each has it's pros and cons which makes for a very difficult choice. In my situation, itl ooks like the ADA system isn't feasible. I would really like to go with Tourmaline BC, PowerSand M, then AquaSoil but this is a tank I plan to change designs on at least once a year. The problem then is everything getting mixed up, the TBC getting into the water column, AQ getting crushed, etc. I have been using EC in my 85gal and 10gal with good results. There hasn't been anything I wasn't able to grow with it. Hairgrass grew fast and dense, HC grew really well (but maybe could have grown better with a more fine substrate,) crypts thrived, etc. etc. The one thing I did not like about EC is that the bags I used had larger grains then that of the EC bags I saw being used in other people's tanks.

My last option is Soilmaster and there are already three or four 50lbs bags at my parent's house. I'm not totally happy with the color of SMS as it's not as dark as EC but I can't been the low low price of "free," and plants are going to cover most of it anyways...


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## Cavan Allen

turtlehead said:


> ADA promotes the best growth though. Maybe I'm just a little biased because I have used ECO for half a year and ADA for two years.


I think that you may be attributing your greater success now to just the aquasoil when it probably has to do with greater skill and more experience. I don't think it's really fair to say Aquasoil produces the _best_ growth. It works, yes, but there are indeed other ways to maximize plant potential. None of the available substrates are a 'magic bullet'. If you fertilize properly, it doesn't matter all that much (if at all) what substrate you use.


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## Nick

I disagree-of course it matters what substrate you use! How do you figure that one out? The vast majority of the plants we keep are not true aquatics in that they have evolved to spend a good deal of their time with most of their mass out of the water column-how do emmersed Crypts, Swords, Hygrophila...you name it..get most of their nutrition when they can be found sticking out of water most of the time? Actually I think there are very sound reasons why substrates like ADA and Florabase are the best substrates and fertilisers to grow plants in. As pelleted clay-based soils they will have much higher CEC's for a start than anything like Flourite and other laterite-type substrates (for your reference check out Paleopedology by Greg Retallack for some comparitive quantitative chemical analysis of different CEC's within different soil types), and this is an essential property for a nutritious soil. Why do Crypts and Swords put so much energy into growing extensive root systems? So they can stay put in those wildly turbulent stagnent rainforest pools?!? I really do not know how you can suggest that it doesn't matter what substrate you use. Sure, there are approaches that use very rich water column dosing, but these are no more valid than those that place the emphasis on the substrate as the key source of nutrients. To suggest otherwise is very misleading, and doesn't reflect the wide range of approaches that can be used to get a great planted tank. And for the record, I'll put my money where my mouth is-go to the aquaessentials forum and look at my ADA based planted journal. It has the best growth I've achieved, and I've tried more ways of dosing my tanks in the past than I've had hot dinners!

Nick


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## Cavan Allen

Oh please.... Misleading? Come on! I said what I said from experience. I've got more plants than I know what to do with and can assure you that dosing the water column heavily works more than just fine. Some of my best plants are grown in *plain gravel*. Are you discounting my experiences?

The inescapable fact is that plants need what they need and will grow to their fullest potential when they have it. One way or another. My point is that if provided with everything in the water column, substrate choice doesn't matter.

*I never said substrate based fert routines or Aquasoil in particular don't work.* You can grow plants a lot of different ways.


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## raggamuffin

i went with eco coplete, in case anyone was wondering. and my plants are looking great!

my oppinion is that you can grow any stem plant you like with good water column fertilisation. but growing root based plants like ground covers, crypts and swords needs really good substrate. by good i mean one that is very porus and so able to absorb a decent amount of nutrients for the plant roots to feed from. that is the difference between regular gravel and commercial products, and the reason we spend so much extra $ on them. as a side benefit, they are packed full of great nutrient when you buy them.


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## Satirica

I have plants from the same stock in Eco-complete and an inert sand/aragonite mix. I find there is no difference in growth at all. The biggest differences are that it is a heckuva lot easier to plant in the sand, the fact that I like the black color of the Eco-complete better and cost. The plants include echindorus, crypts, aponogetons and a variety of other rooted and stem plants.


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## eklikewhoa

just to add to the debate......

20g
96w 6700k-7hrs
seachem/GW ferts EI dosing
tahitian moon sand substrate.....yes plain black sand
pressurized co2










if you look closely there are a few crypts in there


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## BigB

If you dose ferts into teh water then it will make its way into a plain gravel substrate also. And you can add whatever you want to plain gravel and it cost less. EC and ADA just make it a bit easier to get started. I used normal pea sized gravel and i grown swords and jungle vals and hairgrass pretty easy in a variety of tanks


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## DLOBREAKS

interesting thread!! 

has anyone tried using ec/florite/etc. and a layer of sand on top??? I know this is a bit outta the ordinary; (i've read most people use sand on the bottom) But i really like the way the black sand looks and it's 'ease of planting' qualities.


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## houseofcards

DLOBREAKS said:


> interesting thread!!
> 
> has anyone tried using ec/florite/etc. and a layer of sand on top??? I know this is a bit outta the ordinary; (i've read most people use sand on the bottom) But i really like the way the black sand looks and it's 'ease of planting' qualities.


The problem with putting sand on top is that over time the smaller grains will move through the larger grains and end up on the bottom. That is pretty much the way eco is setup. The multivaried grain size of eco allows the smaller grains to end up on the bottom and the large on top. This allows oxygen transfer to the roots of the plants.

My two cents, there's always more than one way to get from point A to point B and I know plenty of planted tank folk that use inert substrate and those that use ada,eco and they all grow great plants. Obviously with the inert substrate the plants need to be supported with more water column ferts.


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