Flourish Excel Overdosing

[riverman444]

Okay, I finally found some Seachem Flourish Excel. I've got an outbreak of beard algae and I know that an OD will kill the stuff.

Will this hurt fish? I have a school of 10 Harlequin Rasboras, 2 Ottos, 3 Panda Corys, 1 big ass white snail, 1 Neon, and 1 Male FT guppy (he's huge)/

Stats:
Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-10-15
Ph-7.0
Temp-76
DIY CO2
2.5 WPG

The tank is 30 gallons and heavily planted. Now, do I have to do anything special with the OD? Turn off lights? Filter? How much would be considered an overdose?

I need some help.

 

[riverman444]

Any planted guru ideas?

 

[atmmachine816]

Does OD stand for overdose and do you know how the algae comes about, like am I at risk for getting it? Sorry can't help you.

 

[riverman444]

OD=OVERDOSE.

Hey, I have some of the crap on my Java Moss too. It makes it look blueish-green.

I can't send you any until this outbreak is dead.

 

[atmmachine816]

I know just wondering where it comes from?

 

[riverman444]

I don't know how it comes about, but I hate it. I can deal with a little green algae on wood and stuff cuz it looks natural. But, this stuff makes my plants look like they have pubes........it's nasty.

 

[Themuleous]

Ive never tried it myself mate, but basically I think you dose the normal amount as outlined on the bottle on the first day, then 2x that amount on the 2nd day and the 3x on the 3rd, keep doseing 3x each day until its all turned white and died off. Keep an eye on you fish, from waht Zig has said it doesn't seem to affect the fish but better to be safe.

And do everything else as normal

Sam

 

[zig]

Do a 50% water change and dose the tank with 5ml excel for every 10 gallons of water you replace, this is just the normal start off dosage as per the instructions on the bottle, you then dose normally 1ml per 10 gallons of tankwater so for a 30 gallon tank you would normally dose 3ml excel per day, but we want to overdose so you multiply 3x3ml = 9ml excel daily, that would be the normal 3x OD, as Sam says start off by 1x and build it up to 3x, and then dose 3x for the duration of the treatment, which normally is 14 days. You do everything else as normal, ferts etc, and keep the CO2 running, you will also do the normal 50% water change if running EI on the tank, and just dose the excel back @5ml per each 10 gallons of water changed. If the fish show signs of stress, stop the treatment, they will usually show signs of stress by gasping at the surface.

Certain plants may also be damaged, just be aware of this, particularily Egeria and Vallis type species, not much you can do here im afraid except remove them to another tank if you have one.

The bba will go a reddish colour, this is a sign it is dying off, for some tanks this can happen really quickly, within a couple of days, for other tanks it can take 7-10 days for this to happen, the reddish colour can be very intense or it can be very weak, when i tried it, it was very weak, each tank and treatment is different, after it has gone red(ish) it will usually go a grey whitish colour, this usually indicates the algae is dead, you should manually remove as much as you can, if you dont correct what caused the outbreak in the first place it will come back.

Best of luck with it.

 

[G_Sharky]

I don't have a lot of BBA in my tank, I only noticed it on some of the leaves of my anubias nana....I regularly dose excel..I dose 10 ml on my 20 gallon 3x a week.....the black beard seems to be undercontrolled doing this...I only see it on the anubias sometimes in the glass, but i would scraped it off and I won't see it for a long while....Is this a good method?? or am I doing harm on my fish cause over the time I lost most of my apisto's the just drop dead one day with no ill symptoms...the rest of my fish like the tetras, angels, pleco are doing great.....Or is it really necessary to dose excel if you don't have an BBA outbreak???