Eco-Complete and sand

[JerSaint]

Hi All, I am starting up a 36 Gallon tank. I have 2 twenty pound bags of eco-complete and 15lbs of petco black sand. Has anyone worked with this combo before? Will the addition of the sand give enough weight to hold down stemmed plants? THANKS!

[Diana]

IME EC is very similar to sand, and a mix ought to work just fine. Maybe it was just the bags I got, but I would have a hard time telling sand apart from EC.

[somewhatshocked]

Eco-Complete is much larger than than sand, so all the sand will sink to the bottom.

[JerSaint]

I was thinking of mixing in a bit of the sand with the eco-complete, but mostly using the sand as a cap. I have heard that the ec is somewhat difficult to work with for stems. Will the sand cap help?

[Andrew H]

I didn't have issues with stemmed plants in Eco complete. Like any other substrate you just need to have depth to hold the plant in place.

[Gooberfish]

I use EC and cap it with black sand. It works great as long as you don't move stuff around a lot. I say go for it.

[AirstoND]

Originally Posted by somewhatshocked

Eco-Complete is much larger than than sand, so all the sand will sink to the bottom.

+1, Also more pronounced if you have high current, trmpet snails and cories

[AoxomoxoA]

Originally Posted by Gooberfish

I use EC and cap it with black sand. It works great as long as you don't move stuff around a lot. I say go for it.

"as long as you don't move stuff" at all

Originally Posted by somewhatshocked

Eco-Complete is much larger than than sand, so all the sand will sink to the bottom.

Originally Posted by AirstoND

+1, Also more pronounced if you have high current, trmpet snails and cories

+2

[acitydweller]

Maybe that cap was reversed no? As the denser layer should be on the bottom.