Eco-complete VS. Flourite Black Sand?

2rivers

2rivers

AC Members
Oct 20, 2010
211
0
0
NH
Real Name
Brandon
Im gettin ready to set up an extra 10g in prep. for spring experiments. It will end up heavily planted/ Crypt.s, Anubias, Rotala indica,wood and random low light simple stuff. Its going to be mostly for corries. I have a bunch of Corydoras pygmaeus now (HORRAY!), so I was wonderin if anybody out there is using Flourite Black Sand with there corries? are there any drawbacks I should be aware of? How will my plants do? I know all about the Eco-Complete so this is mainly a? about Flourite Black Sand for corries and plants. My ugly gravel could be like 20yrs old but Im gettin sick of seein fruity colored gravel in my pics.

mini adult already.jpg
 
I got some black sand--pretty sure it was flourite but it was out of the bag so I can't say for sure--from another AC member a couple of months back. Have it in a 10g with a molly, couple of small platy, and two bumblebee catfish. It catches all the plants that either don't fit or don't thrive in the 29g with black gravel, and they absolutely grow like crazy in the sand. I use neither ferts nor CO2, it just runs on fish poop. :)

and did I mention how gorgeous it is? Go for it. :)

of course the other 10g has aquariumplants.com's eco-complete knockoff and it does just fine too, still going strong after a couple of years now. It was billed as "black" but is actually more brown to my eye anyway.

So the choice is up to you; the eco is larger grained but still much smaller than gravel, while the sand is very fine grained but still big enough not to float around aimlessly. Go with the color and grain size you prefer. Either will do fine with plants and cory.
 
I have eco in 1 tank, flourite black sand in another. I prefer the eco, the larger grains are easier to clean without vacuuming it up. I capped the sand with Estes marine sand to try & keep the dust-like sand down with partial sucess. I have small loaches on the eco, no problems but only have shrimp on the sand. Both are easy to plant.
 
Im very lazy with my vuccumin I admit it. I might just go with eco so I can stir up mulm muck the easy way. Thanks for input. Im gettin some micro-panchax normani closer to spring and plan on spending more time&$ goin more high-tech with the plants
 
Wow wait LOACHES! Yeah! My fav. fish ever is my trout like 7' modesta loach (The Loach ness ]v[onster) hes like a decade old,dark as a shadow, and way too dominant. I love loaches! we need more in the hobby,people give up on difficult loaches and its a shame,theyre really missin out on explorring a very different fish
 
I use both. Really have no preference except that flourite black sand isn't "black" enough for me. I don't even vacuum the mulm or anything but both tanks are heavily planted. Planting is easier on the eco though. I'm sure cories prefer the sand over eco. My cories dig in the eco but not as much as I've seen them do it on sand.
 
2rivers said:
Wow wait LOACHES! Yeah! My fav. fish ever is my trout like 7' modesta loach (The Loach ness ]v[onster) hes like a decade old,dark as a shadow, and way too dominant. I love loaches! we need more in the hobby,people give up on difficult loaches and its a shame,theyre really missin out on explorring a very different fish
Click to expand...

Yeah, I love loaches as do many of us :thm: That's why there's a whole separate forum for them ;) I have sids & striatas on eco & have seen sids with half their bodies nosed into it looking for live worm treats so corys should be fine. 10 years is a good long time, congrats, many loaches can live quite a long time. I have 8 species but none of the aggressive ones or hillstreams (yet! :evil_lol:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom