Eco-Complete cichlid???

[MOsborne05]

Anyone heard of it, or tried it??? The aragonite that I have now is a pain to keep clean and the only reason I have it is to buffer the water. Drs Foster & Smith have this stuff that is good for the plants and will also buffer the water. Any thoughts on it??

[RTR]

The major buffering effect is short-lived (months). I would not use it just for that reason, only I preferred it to other substrates.

[MOsborne05]

Yeah, but I don't like the aragonite so this stuff would be better than regular gravel or flourite right?

[Jager]

i belive it would be ok. we use the stuff for our cichlids and it is basically washed substrate that was dredged from the lakes in africa. freaky stuff but good for what it says.

howver plants and cichlids dont really last tiogether being that cichlids are primarily veggie lovers.

but should be ok for higher ph puffers.

[RTR]

There are lots of non-herbivorous Cichlids.

[Jager]

yes but not many leave the typical aquarium plants alive. all the lake tanginikan and lake malawi cichlids and SA ciclids we have carried all enjoyed a hearty side of veggies.(I am not referring to oscars or angelfish or discus even though they are cichlids they are nto what the common public thinks ciclids are. so trying to avoid newbie confusion) granted they are not nearly but a tiny spot of the total cichlid variety and population, but we have had alot since our main fish guy is a cichlid fanatic and expert to boot.. atually reminds me of you a bit RTR.

hehe.

[RTR]

My N. leleupi colony is in a planted tank which does quite well. My Angel tank is very heavily planted, as was my very light BW Chromide tank. The big mbuna tank even had some plants, but far from heavily planted. How about Rams? Kribs? All the Apistos? For that matter, how about all the Val-bed fish from Lake Malawi? The rock jumbles are just one habitat, which would never have speciated to the extent it did without ecologic separation by the extensive Val beds.

Too-broad generalizations bother me, as they rarely hold up, and they can frighten folks away from fully valid setups.

[MOsborne05]

RTR, what plants did you have in your brackish tank??? I need to get some more plants but don't know what will be ok in brackish, other than the dwarf sag, anubias and anacharis that I have now. I need some sort of sword plant for a background plant. I also need to get some new lights, I just got some Aqua-Glo 18,000k lights and my anubias has already started turning brown in just a few days. I need to go back to the 6700k ones but I don't have any right now.

[RTR]

I used Val and Anubias, very slow adjustment, >6 weeks to 1.003.