# Eco complete and liquid



## bristlenose72 (May 12, 2019)

Eco complete is a substrate that I am told one does not need to rinse before adding to the aquarium. You can just add the substrate directly to your tank.

The eco complete bags also contain a lot of liquid to retain the biological properties of the substrate. Does this liquid also need to be added to a new tank setup.

Thanks for any advice you have.

Regards,

Dom


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## aconite (Aug 9, 2019)

Hi Dom,

I recently set up a second tank with eco complete. I didn't rinse it, and I emptied the entire contents of the bags into my tank after getting the rocks set up, including the water in the bags. I then added water, Prime, and the little bags of 'clearing agent' that come with the eco complete. No idea if that stuff helps or not, but thought I may as well add it as it came with the sand. When I filled the tank I used one of the bags to cover the sand and stop the incoming water churning things up.

The tank cleared in a few hours, with both filters running. I then agitated the substrate a fair bit and got it to cloud up again. It cleared again in an hour or so. This was far quicker than the last time I set a tank up with standard sand.

If you're paying the premium for eco complete, I'd definitely not rinse it. I'm not sure if this stuff helped in my tank in any way, as I had an existing tank that I ran one of the new filters on for 10 days first, so wasn't worried about cycling. What I have noticed in the six or so weeks since I set this tank up is that I've had no issues with diatoms / brown algae deposits. I think this may have something to do with using the eco complete instead of sand.

Did yours come with little black chunks of what looks like lava rock? Lightweight little bits that get moved around by water currents? I wasn't expected that, but have grown to like it mixed in with the white sand.


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## bristlenose72 (May 12, 2019)

Thanks for your advice. Yes, there are the little chunks of black larva rock. I'm very pleased with the substrate. Looks good.


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