When I shift the Eco-Complete Substrate to plant the water gets murky / white.
- Thread starter aznprz
- Start date
It happened to me. When I converted to live plants in September, I had a less than satisfying Eco-Complete installation experience. I bought 6 bags--3 bags from two different stores. The first 3 bags went in fine--no murkiness, crystal clear water. With the first of the 2nd set of bags from the other store, the water immediately got cloudy--very cloudy. It looked like a tank full of milk. I went ahead and put in the last 2 bags and let it settle overnight. In the morning, the water had cleared and the "dust had settled"--literally. A thick layer of gray-white dust had settled on top of the substrate. Any attempt at planting created a milky dust cloud in the tank.
So--I dug out all six bags of Eco-Complete and rinsed the holy bejeezus out of it--an exhausting all day job. Red built me a big rinsing screen out of 2 x 4s and non-metal window screen repair material that I propped up between two cast-iron patio chairs. I hauled the Eco-Complete outside, bucket by bucket, bag by bag, dumped in the rinsing screen, and rinsed, rinsed, stirred, rinsed, stirred, rinsed and rinsed some more. I put a couple of big platters underneath the screen to catch some of the finer particles and rinsed them separately. When I thought it was completely clean, I rinsed it two more times. Then, I had to wash out the tank, using a washcloth to wipe the gray-white dust off the glass. Meanwhile, my 28 fish and three snails were co'-chillin' in a 20 gallon tank with the filter for two days--thank goodness for QT tanks, and thank goodness for community fish that get along in tight quarters!
The good news is that once I'd fully rinsed and reinstalled the Eco-Complete, the cloudy water problems resolved, and it is a beautiful-looking substrate. Additionally, whatever was in the Eco-Complete that made the water cloudy did not affect the phosphate, GH or KH levels (although it did raise the pH some). The bad news is, what should have taken a few hours at most took an entire weekend of back-straining work.
The response from Carib-Sea? First and foremost, I’m sorry that you had a negative experience with our products. I think I know what might have happened to your product. It is not “old” or “bad” product as the one instance we have had with that was a few years ago and we bought back all of the affected product from our distributors. What I think may have been the problem was that it was not fully processed before it was bagged. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there is any thing I can do after the fact except to apologize. Eco-Complete’s packing solution does not contain fertilizers. All of the “fertilizers” that are in Eco are actually in the form of minerals and trace elements in the substrate itself. For the most part these are taken in by the plant roots and are not in a super soluble form. In short I would not worry, you did not loose (sp) anything buy (sp) rinsing. You would still need to fertilize in the case of a very heavily planted tank with fast growing, (bunch plants and the like), plants.
So--I dug out all six bags of Eco-Complete and rinsed the holy bejeezus out of it--an exhausting all day job. Red built me a big rinsing screen out of 2 x 4s and non-metal window screen repair material that I propped up between two cast-iron patio chairs. I hauled the Eco-Complete outside, bucket by bucket, bag by bag, dumped in the rinsing screen, and rinsed, rinsed, stirred, rinsed, stirred, rinsed and rinsed some more. I put a couple of big platters underneath the screen to catch some of the finer particles and rinsed them separately. When I thought it was completely clean, I rinsed it two more times. Then, I had to wash out the tank, using a washcloth to wipe the gray-white dust off the glass. Meanwhile, my 28 fish and three snails were co'-chillin' in a 20 gallon tank with the filter for two days--thank goodness for QT tanks, and thank goodness for community fish that get along in tight quarters!
The good news is that once I'd fully rinsed and reinstalled the Eco-Complete, the cloudy water problems resolved, and it is a beautiful-looking substrate. Additionally, whatever was in the Eco-Complete that made the water cloudy did not affect the phosphate, GH or KH levels (although it did raise the pH some). The bad news is, what should have taken a few hours at most took an entire weekend of back-straining work.
The response from Carib-Sea? First and foremost, I’m sorry that you had a negative experience with our products. I think I know what might have happened to your product. It is not “old” or “bad” product as the one instance we have had with that was a few years ago and we bought back all of the affected product from our distributors. What I think may have been the problem was that it was not fully processed before it was bagged. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there is any thing I can do after the fact except to apologize. Eco-Complete’s packing solution does not contain fertilizers. All of the “fertilizers” that are in Eco are actually in the form of minerals and trace elements in the substrate itself. For the most part these are taken in by the plant roots and are not in a super soluble form. In short I would not worry, you did not loose (sp) anything buy (sp) rinsing. You would still need to fertilize in the case of a very heavily planted tank with fast growing, (bunch plants and the like), plants.
I have it in my 10gal, I used one bag that did that. It was pretty cloudy for a few days then cleared up. The first few weeks it would cloud up when I was moving plants around or cleaning the tank, but it eventually went away.
If its a milky white cloud, I had this after I cleaned my gravel too soon while my tank was still cycling. I was told it was due to a bacterial bloom or die off, one of the two.. could be the same thing?