# Eco-Complete as a Substrate



## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Here's a recent letter I got from a hobbyist that seems to have done everything "according to the book" but gotten poor results.

_After reading your book, Ecology of the Planted Aquarium, I have followed your advice with my tank as closely as I could. I have a 40g breeder tank stocked with platies and guppy/endler hybrids, along with malaysian trumpet snails, and ramshorn snails. This tank is only a month old but everything in it (filter media, fish, plants, decorations, 1/3 the substrate, 3 gallons of the water), was moved over from my old 20g. Since upgrading it I have noticed a flourish of green hair algae taking over my java moss and starting to spread to my anacharis and cardinal plants. My cryptocoryne is plagued with a black hair algae that seems to come back no matter how much I remove it. I've done everything your book suggests. I have fast growing submerged plants along with emergent plants (duckweed, lucky bamboo, pothos). My lights go on your 5-4-5 schedule and my fish are fed once a day. What can I do? I don't want to resort to dosing fertilizer or CO2.
Substrate is 3 bags of Eco-complete. Lights are 2 CFL bulbs at 1600 lumen and 6500k color temperature. Thank you so much in advance for your time! _

My response:
Sorry to hear about your tank problems.

I assume that your 20 gal was successful? If so, can you think of anything that you have done differently with this 40 gal?

I would not recommend Eco-complete as a _pure_ substrate. (Several hobbyists have used it instead of gravel as a soil cover, and it reportedly worked well.) Eco-complete is gravel with a few nutrients added. It does not have the _enormous_ nutrient storage capacity of soil. Otherwise, your emergent bamboo and pothos -- growing above the water surface and therefore, not inhibited by the tank's algae -- should be growing like crazy in this tank.

Also, the Eco-complete being primarily an inert gravel doesn't have much organic matter to provide CO2 to your submerged plants. So they've lost out from the "get go." The algae is getting whatever little bits of CO2 this tank produces. That's why your Java moss cannot hold it's own.

As long as this tank has algae problems, only emergent plants can survive. However, the gravel substrate seems to be holding them back. I would consider putting the pothos and bamboo in pots with soil and see how they do. Maybe, add some potted Amazon Swordplants. Reduce the water level or elevate the potted plants so that these plants are right up under the light. You might have to do this temporarily as a rescue measure until you get enough emergent plant growth to outcompete the algae. This would then give your submerged plants a "fighting chance."

Once you solve the algae problem, submerged plants should be able to do fine.

It would help to see a picture of the tank.


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## atc84 (May 18, 2013)

Based on this, would it be a bad idea to use a gravel like floramax for the DSM, since it requires high nutrient soil such as Miracle Grow?


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